Ode to Baseball Literature: Diamonds in the Rough, Part 2

Despite the fact that winter surprised many of us in the Northeast with a late season snowstorm yesterday, our nation's annual rite of spring -- baseball's opening day -- is less than two weeks away. And, while the remnants of a long winter linger, many a true baseball fan can find joy in the pages of countless great books about the sport.

Last week, BTW Senior Editor David Grogan, an admitted baseball addict, shared his favorite titles in "Diamonds in the Rough, Part 1." This week, BTW presents a compilation of baseball favorites based on an informal survey of ABA staff members who share a passion for literature about our national pastime.

• Ball Four by Jim Bouton (Wiley). Bouton's tell-all book was first published in 1970 and was so controversial that then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to get the pitcher to sign a statement saying that the book was fictitious. Ball Four gives the reader a revealing look at life in baseball. For the 20th anniversary edition, Bouton has added a new epilogue.
  

• Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris (University of Nebraska Press). Sports Illustrated named Harris's heart-breaking novel about friendship one of the top 100 sports books of all time. The book centers on baseball, but is also the story of friendship and the lives of ballplayers as each hears the tragic news that one of their teammates is dying of cancer.
  

• Baseball: An Illustrated History by Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward (Knopf). This is the companion book to the Burns' nine-part PBS television documentary, Baseball: The American Epic. The book contains over 500 photos, along with essays by Thomas Boswell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Daniel Okrent, and George Will, among others, as well as an introduction by Roger Angell.
  

• The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn (Perennial). A book hailed by many as one of the greatest sports books ever written, The Boys of Summer are the Brooklyn Dodgers. Kahn, a sportswriter who covered the Dodgers in the 1950s for the Herald Tribune, details the lives of the men who went on to play for one of the most exciting sports franchises during the 1950s.
  

• The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg (University of Nebraska Press). This novel, first published in 1983, weaves together the real-life story of baseball legend Christy Mathewson and the fictional story of a Jewish immigrant family of jewelers. A Kansas City Star reviewer noted: "Greenburg splendidly evokes the essence of turn-of-the-century America by deftly mixing fact and fiction in the tradition of Ragtime."
  

• Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888 by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. It's the bottom of the ninth, and the Mudville Nine are down 4 to 2… will there be joy in Mudville? There are a number of published versions of Thayer's 1888 famous poem sure to be a hit with kids of all ages.
  

• Crooked River Burning by Mark Winegardner (Harcourt). The Cleveland Indians baseball club is part of the backdrop in this tale of 20 years in the lives of two lovers, from 1948 to 1969, in a troubled and turbulent country. A Book Sense 76 pick.
  

• Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof (Holt). It was the scandal that almost ruined baseball -- eight Chicago White Sox players were paid by the nation's leading gamblers to throw the World Series. Asinof's book reconstructs the story scene-by-scene, including the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the 1921 trial. The Boston Globe raved that Eight Men Out was "as thrilling as a cops and robbers tome."
  

• The Golem's Mighty Swing by James Sturm (Drawn & Quarterly). Set in the 1920s, Sturm's graphic novel tells the story of a barnstorming Jewish baseball team, the Star of Davids, who travel from town to town and play local squads to earn a living. To boost attendance, the lone black player on the team poses as a golem -- a creature made of clay and brought to life by a rabbi -- and things go horribly awry.
  

• Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (Harvest Books). You can't go wrong with any of Angell's books, but Game Time is a collection of some of Angell's best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002.
  

• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis (Norton). Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's innovations and maverick spirit, and the small-market A's success are the subject of Michael Lewis's compelling book. The bestselling book was a July/August 2003 Book Sense 76 pick.
  

• The Natural by Bernard Malamud (FSG). Many argue that Malamud's novel -- about a superbly gifted baseball player -- is the best baseball novel ever written. In his book, which was first published in 1952, Roy Hobbs wants to be the best there ever was and is well on his way to fulfilling his dream when fate intervenes.
  

• Snow in August by Pete Hamill (Warner). Though not exclusively about baseball, Ebbets Field plays a prominent role in Hamill's novel. It's postwar Brooklyn, and 11-year-old, Irish Catholic Michael Devlin is in trouble after witnessing the leader of the Falcons gang beat up a shopkeeper. Eventually, he befriends Judah Hirsch, a rabbi and refugee from Prague, and both find a common love in baseball. However, trouble soon ensues in the form of group of anti-Semitic hoodlums.
  

• Sometimes You See it Coming: A Novel by Kevin Baker (Perennial). Baker's novel details the story of the mysterious John Barr, an all-around superstar who seems to have no past, no friends, no women, and no interest other than helping the New York Mets win championship after championship. When a new manager shows up, Barr starts to unravel.
  

• Summer of '49 (Perennial) and October 1964 (Ballantine) by David Halberstam. Both of these bestselling Halberstam books are wonderful histories of the game. Summer of '49 chronicles one of baseball's greatest seasons, seen through the battle between Joe DiMaggio's Yankees and Ted Williams' Red Sox. Halberstam's follow-up, October 1964, details the 1964 World Series between Mickey Mantle's aging Yankees and Bob Gibson's St. Louis Cardinals.
  

• Veeck As in Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck by Bill Veeck (University of Chicago). The autobiography of promoter, baseball team owner, and hall-of-famer Bill Veeck. Veeck went on to own the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns, and the Chicago White Sox (twice) and also was the man who brought Disco Demolition Night to a major league game.
  

• Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S). Baseball -- namely the Brooklyn Dodgers -- plays a central role in Kearns memoir about growing up in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s. Kearns inherits her father's love of baseball and the Dodgers, and her mother's love of books. Library Journal called her memoir "a poignant but unsentimental journey for all adults and, of course, especially for baseball fans."
  

We hope you enjoyed our baseball picks. If you have any recommendations of your own, please send them to [email protected].

Play ball! --Compiled by David Grogan