Here are 100 books that Crazy '08 fans have personally recommended if you like
Crazy '08.
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I split my writing time between fiction and non-fiction, the latter usually baseball-themed, and I’ve published two books of baseball writing. My reading is similarly bifurcated; there’s always a baseball book on my nightstand. I’ve also got a background in history, and I genuinely enjoy deep research (it’s a great way to put off, you know, writing). Baseball is such fertile ground, so ripe for deep dives—the nexus of sport, culture, entertainment, economics, labour relations, etc. The best baseball books are more than boxscores and transactions, they place the game in its historical context. Books that manage to synthesize all of the above are some of my favourite reads.
Gilbert is both a shrewd historian and a wonderful writer, and in this deeply researched volume, he details how and, convincingly, why the rise of the emerging urban bourgeoisie, extant political currents, and the expansion of railroads took the game of baseball from a game played in New York City and Brooklyn to the most popular sport among both players and spectators from one side of the continent to the other (and beyond).
The fascinating, true, story of baseball's amateur origins. "Explores the conditions and factors that begat the game in the 19th century and turned it into the national pastime....A delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat."-Paul Dickson, The Wall Street Journal
Baseball's true founders don't have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs - ordinary people - who played without gloves, facemasks or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today's pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They…
I split my writing time between fiction and non-fiction, the latter usually baseball-themed, and I’ve published two books of baseball writing. My reading is similarly bifurcated; there’s always a baseball book on my nightstand. I’ve also got a background in history, and I genuinely enjoy deep research (it’s a great way to put off, you know, writing). Baseball is such fertile ground, so ripe for deep dives—the nexus of sport, culture, entertainment, economics, labour relations, etc. The best baseball books are more than boxscores and transactions, they place the game in its historical context. Books that manage to synthesize all of the above are some of my favourite reads.
John Thorn—the official historian of Major League Baseball—is a living encyclopedia, and this is his definitive tome on the game’s nineteenth-century beginnings, from the amateur era to the rise of the first professional leagues. This and Gilbert’s book might be viewed as companion pieces—indeed, Thorn wrote the introduction to How Baseball Happened—and both dispel the ridiculous myth that the game was invented in Cooperstown, New York by a young man who would grow up to be a Civil War hero, but Thorn goes deep on the fascinating story of who created that myth, and why, which is a tale so odd it’s nearly novelistic.
Now available in paperback, the “fresh and fascinating” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), “splendid and brilliant” (Philadelphia Daily News) history of the early game by the Official Historian of Major League Baseball.
Who really invented baseball? Forget Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown and Alexander Cartwright. Meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and other fascinating figures buried beneath the falsehoods that have accrued around baseball’s origins. This is the true story of how organized baseball started, how gambling shaped the game from its earliest days, and how it became our national pastime and our national mirror.
I am a professor of American Jewish history who has written extensively on how sports have impacted the lives of American Jews. I have been especially interested in how the acceptance or rejection of Jews in the sports arena has underscored that group’s place within this country’s society. I have been likewise intrigued by how the call of athleticism has challenged their ethnic and religious identity. The saga of Marty Glickman, a story of adversity and triumph, speaks boldly to critical issues that this minority group has faced.
During the mid-1960s, Sandy Koufax was a dominant baseball pitcher and was destined to be the youngest player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
For Jewish fans however, of my generation and beyond, he was an iconic Jewish hero most notably for his determination in 1965 to sit out a World Series game in deference to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Leavy, an extraordinarily talented writer, tells this sports and Jewish story with keen insights into Koufax’s personality.
“The incomparable and mysterious Sandy Koufax is revealed…. This is an absorbing book, beautifully written.” —Wall Street Journal
“Leavy has hit it out of the park…A lot more than a biography. It’s a consideration of how we create our heroes, and how this hero’s self perception distinguishes him from nearly every other great athlete in living memory… a remarkably rich portrait.” — Time
The instant New York Times bestseller about the baseball legend and famously reclusive Dodgers’ pitcher Sandy Koufax, from award-winning former Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy. Sandy Koufax reveals, for the first time, what drove the three-time Cy…
I split my writing time between fiction and non-fiction, the latter usually baseball-themed, and I’ve published two books of baseball writing. My reading is similarly bifurcated; there’s always a baseball book on my nightstand. I’ve also got a background in history, and I genuinely enjoy deep research (it’s a great way to put off, you know, writing). Baseball is such fertile ground, so ripe for deep dives—the nexus of sport, culture, entertainment, economics, labour relations, etc. The best baseball books are more than boxscores and transactions, they place the game in its historical context. Books that manage to synthesize all of the above are some of my favourite reads.
Henry Aaron’s career spanned the Negro Leagues, the Civil Rights movement, baseball’s expansion era, the turbulent ’60s, and the freaky ’70s, all while dealing with intractable racism, especially as he neared Babe Ruth’s home run record. Aaron’s autobiography, I Had a Hammer, is certainly worth reading, but author and NPR correspondent Howard Bryant is the right man to put Aaron’s life and career in historical perspective. The Last Hero is an intelligent and incisive social history of the second half of the twentieth century, as well as a stirring account of a heroic baseball life. Incidentally, Bryant’s next book is a biography of Rickey Henderson, which promises more of this goodness. I can’t wait.
This definitive biography of Henry (Hank) Aaron—one of baseball's immortal figures—is a revelatory portrait of a complicated, private man who through sports became an enduring American icon.
“Beautifully written and culturally important.” —The Washington Post
“The epic baseball tale of the second half of the 20th century.” —Atlanta Journal Constitution
After his retirement in 1976, Aaron’s reputation only grew in magnitude. But his influence extended beyond statistics. Based on meticulous research and extensive interviews The Last Hero reveals how Aaron navigated the upheavals of his time—fighting against racism while at the same time benefiting from racial progress—and how he achieved…
No one really knows who invented baseball. Games involving balls hit with sticks, runners, and bases are as old as time. By the middle of the 1800s, everybody in America was playing baseball. And I mean everybody—girls, boys, women, and men from all walks of life and heritage. While researching baseball history for The House That Ruth Built, I read stacks of baseball books about baseball legends—for the most part, White players like Babe Ruth or Black players like Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier. I was surprised and delighted when I came across books about baseball players who represented the rest of everybody—hence this list.
With vibrant realistic illustrations and rhythmic, lively dialogue a boy named Clemente, tells the story of his namesake, the Pittsburg Pirates right-fielder and slugger Roberto Clemente, a Puerto Rican kid who grew up to be the first Latin American baseball superstar and humanitarian.
The story’s fast-paced narrative and saucy voice make it a fun read-aloud while at the same time sharing the story of how an “anybody” can grow up to be a hero, and how being a hero is about more than just being good at baseball.
Clemente! is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
A little boy named Clemente learns about his namesake, the great baseball player Roberto Clemente, in this joyful picture book biography.
Born in Puerto Rico, Roberto Clemente was the first Latin American player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the only player for whom the five-year initiation period was waived. Known not only for his exceptional baseball skills but also for his extensive charity work in Latin America, Clemente was well-loved during his 18 years playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He died in…
Major league baseball stadiums have always enthralled me—their architectures, their atmospheres, their surroundings. Each has a unique story to tell. So I decided to tell the story of how perhaps the greatest of all American ballparks, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, came to be. As an urban historian, I also wished to tell a broader story of how the argument between 1957 and 1962 over whether, where, and how to build the stadium helped make Los Angeles into the modern city we know today. So writing City of Dreamsallowed me to combine my passions for baseball, for stadiums, and for the history of American cities.
A lifelong fan of a baseball team makes the best chronicler of its ballpark, and long-time Cubs sufferer (are there any other kind?) George Will explains the charms of Wrigley Field that endure in the face of a century (save for one glorious year) of near-misses, by-a-mile misses, and general misery. Ironically, Will composed this love letter to his Field of Despair just before the Cubs ended a 108-year drought by winning the 2016 World Series. But this may not really matter. For Will, and for all Cubs fans, Wrigley Field is more than the sum of its wins and losses. It transcends them.
Now with bonus material on the Chicago Cubs' World Series win, the New York Times-bestselling history of America's most beloved baseball stadium, Wrigley Field, and the Cubs’ century-long search for World Series glory
In A Nice Little Place on the North Side, leading columnist George Will returns to baseball with a deeply personal look at his hapless Chicago Cubs and their often beatified home, Wrigley Field, as it enters its second century. Baseball, Will argues, is full of metaphors for life, religion, and happiness, and Wrigley is considered one of its sacred spaces. But what is its true, hyperbole-free history?…
As the author of 73 published books, I have four goals for writing. I want to write more women into history, emphasize how everyday activities children accomplish are important, empower young readers, and tell a story that moves readers, either through an emotional response or the knowledge that they can do what whoever I wrote about did. My biographies cover role models who have been groundbreakers in their time and place. Readers can be, too.
I love to read (and write) about talented, dedicated females.
This middle-grade biography about Dottie Kamenshek tells of how one talented woman of many dazzled spectators in the groundbreaking All-American Girls Softball League. Her talent lifted the spirits of a nation worried about men drafted into the military to fight during World War II.
What started as a stunt to keep viewers while male players were away turned into an amazing experiment where female athletes could shine. Go Kammie!
Dorothy Mary Kamenshek was born to immigrant parents in Norwood, Ohio. As a young girl, she played pickup games of sandlot baseball with neighborhood children; no one, however, would have suspected that at the age of seventeen she would become a star athlete at the national level.
The outbreak of World War II and the ensuing draft of able-bodied young men severely depleted the ranks of professional baseball players. In 1943, Philip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, led the initiative to establish a new league-a women's league-to fill the ballparks while the war ground on in Europe and…
We raised three children who loved athletics, but as we parented them through what we came to term the youth sports industry, we gradually realized how dramatically and for the worse, youth sports had changed since we were kids. The present profit-based model treats children as commodities, and we feel strongly that this is the worst way to approach youth sports. So, yes, we feel passionately about this topic, especially about the need for reform.
Admittedly not a happy read, we believe this is a necessary one to grasp the sickening, heart-breaking overuse injury aspect of youth sports with stories from individual athletes, teams, and coaches from around the country.
The term "career-ending injury" is now increasingly applied to teenage athletes as a result of overuse injuries! The author critically examines the roles of parents, coaches, professional sports leagues, and national sports organizations that turn a blind eye to the wreckage left in the wake of the overuse epidemic.
Yahoo’s lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports—the pitching arm—and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.
Every year, Major League Baseball spends more than $1.5 billion on pitchers—five times more than the salary of every NFL quarterback combined. Pitchers are the game’s lifeblood. Their import is exceeded only by their fragility. One tiny band of tissue in the elbow, the ulnar collateral ligament, is snapping at unprecedented rates, leaving current big league players vulnerable and the coming generation of baseball-playing children dreading…
Scott Longert has his M.A. in American History from Cleveland State University. He has written five books on baseball history with a sixth on the way. His most recent work was Cy Young: An American BaseballHero designed specifically for children. The book was a selection of the Junior Library Guild. Scott has made numerous appearances on radio and television along with being interviewed for several baseball documentaries. Scott served nine years as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, stationed at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Currently, he faithfully attends baseball games in Cleveland, waiting for the home team to capture their first World Series win since 1948.
Author Voigt produced three volumes of work, detailing the history of the game from its roots in the early nineteenth century, through the latter part of the twentieth. Volume One begins with a debunking of the myth that Abner Doubleday created the game in the green fields of Cooperstown, New York. Voigt in using a tremendous amount of research material, traces the modernization of baseball from a gentleman’s game played for amusement and relaxation to a professional organization built to win.
Readers interested in learning how the game evolved from underhand pitching to a mound sixty feet six inches and three outs to a side would benefit from studying this work.
How did "America's National Game" evolve from a gentlemen's pastime in the 1850s to a national obsession in the Roaring Twenties? What really happened at Cooperstown in 1839, and why does the "Doubleday legend" persist? How did the commissioner system develop, and what was the impact of the "Black Sox" scandal? These questions and many others are answered in this book, with colorful details about early big league stars such as Mike "King" Kelly and pious Billy Sunday, Charles Comiskey and Ty Cobb, Napoleon Lajoie and "Cy" (Cyclone) Young.
The author explores historically the four major periods of transformation of…
I grew up in rural Iowa in the 1950s and 60s, a place far removed from most of the world. Our town had no movie theater, no library, no anything except for a truly excellent baseball field. So we played – day, night, with full teams or three brothers or all by yourself. We also were tasked by our father with caring for the diamond, which was the home park for the local semi-pro team, the Cascade Reds. When I left town – fled would be a better description – I took my love of baseball with me. I played baseball in Vietnam, watched games in Hiroshima, Japan, Seoul, Korea, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Kansas City, and St. Louis. I could go on like this for a long time, but I think you get the picture.
As a long-suffering fan of the Seattle Mariners, who have avoided success longer than any other North American sports team this century, how could I not love a novel whose central premise is what would happen if an elite professional sports team, the defending National League champs, fielded an entire line-up of players overwhelmed by clinical depression? This is the funniest sad book I’ve ever read. Well, maybe the second after Catch 22. All the characters play baseball, but the book is less about sport than it is about how humans survive a hostile world.
