Favorite Non-Angels Baseball Books

[mtangelsfan]

Stephen King does have a short story called "Heads up" about his kid's little league team.  It is pretty good.

 

John Grisham has one called Calico Joe.  I really enjoyed that one.

[Homebrewer]

A few of the many things I found out I didn't know about Koufax:

 

Walter Alston all but refused to let him pitch at all for his first few years as a Dodger. The rule in those days was that anyone signed for more than a $,4000 bonus, had to be kept on the ML roster for 2 years (no minors for bonus babies) Koufax got a $6,000 bonus.

Alston was a Georgia country boy, old school to the extreme.

Jackie Robinson hated Walter Alston with passion. He thought Alston was dumber than dirt.

 

An 0-4 Tommy Lasorda (13.50 Era-his final ML line) was out-righted to Montreal to make room for Koufax.

They were both LH pitchers.

Major league pitcher Joe Black said something to the effect of  "They were both lefties but that was all they had in common. Sandy 

could throw better right handed than Tommy could left handed"

[Homebrewer]

Fan since 79 suggested..

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, by Jonathan Eig



http://www.amazon.co...g/dp/0743268938


Just finished this remarkable book. Most of us have seen "Pride of the Yankees" and all of us have heard of Lou Gehrigs Disease (ALS)
And like me, we probably think we know who Lou Gehrig was.
Well, I sure didn't. This book was published in 2005, and like Ms Leavy's book on Sandy Koufax, this book was heavily researched, and was based more on fact than on legend...both in the case of Lou, but also on his HR hitting mate, George Herman Ruth.
Great book.

Thanks Fan since 79.

An article I found doing some further reading is worth checking out..

75 years later, Babe Ruth's hug means almost as much as Lou Gehrig's speech

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/7/8/5878847/lou-gehrig-babe-ruth-75-anniverary-luckiest-man-speech-forgiveness-history

Edited September 21, 2015 by Homebrewer

[Homebrewer]

Next up.. 

 

 

A false spring /

by Jordan, Pat.

New York : Simon & Schuster, 1988, c1975. 1988, c1975.

Then

Where's Harry? : Steve Stone remembers Harry Caray /

by Stone, Steve., Rozner, Barry.

Dallas, Tex. : Taylor Pub., c1999. c1999.

[jsnpritchett]

Next up.. 

 

 

A false spring /

by Jordan, Pat.

New York : Simon & Schuster, 1988, c1975. 1988, c1975.

Then

Where's Harry? : Steve Stone remembers Harry Caray /

by Stone, Steve., Rozner, Barry.

Dallas, Tex. : Taylor Pub., c1999. c1999.

 

Cool.  Let me know what you think of A False Spring!  I just started re-reading it, actually.

[Homebrewer]

Will do...sounds pretty interesting, as many er.. most guys who play in the minors, never get to the Bigs.

 

Reading nothing but baseball-related books until the post season is over.

[fan_since79]

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/As-Bad-It-Gets-Athletics/dp/0786478187

[Homebrewer]

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/As-Bad-It-Gets-Athletics/dp/0786478187

Looks good..amazingly (or not) there are a lot of accounts of failure in the baseball genre. 

[fan_since79]

The 1916 A's were amazingly bad. They finished with a record of 34-117 and were 40 games behind the 7th place team in the AL.

 

Three pitchers lost 20 games each, and they had only two pitchers who won more than two games.

[Albacore]

"Ted Williams: Biography of An American Hero" by Leigh Montville. A big book, but a fast read. 

"The Innocent Man" by John Grisham. True Crime. Baseball. Good writing.

[Homebrewer]

Thanks longfin.

Tight lines..

[Homebrewer]

LBhalo suggested:

 

Playing With the Enemy (about US servicemen teaching baseball to German U-boat sailors during WW2),

Just finished this excellent book. Yes, it was about a naval baseball team who guarded some German U-boat prisoners, and taught them baseball....but it was so much more than that. It was a story of war, of history, of passion for the game, heartbreak, resurrection, and family. It was an incredible book on multiple levels.

I thank LB for the suggestion, and completely recommend to anyone who hasn't read it.

 

A side note, U505 was the only U-boat that was captured during WW2, and is on display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. I have been on it 3 or 4 times over my lifetime. I never really knew the story of how this U-boat was captured and what happened to the sailors who were captured with it.

They were held in secret, and not allowed Geneva Convention rights, because our government didn't want the Germans to know it had been captured. These are the sailors that learned to play ball in a secret camp in Louisiana. But really, this is just a small portion of this book.

Great book. 

 

Next up

Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

Edited October 19, 2015 by Homebrewer

[mpcincal]

It's an older book and might be harder to find, but I've always enjoyed "Damned Yankees" by Bill Madden and Moss Klein, two guys who covered the Yankees through the 1970s and '80s. This came out in 1990 as the Yankees were headed to the low point of the Steinbrenner era before regrouping and starting the late '90s dynasty.

 

It has the usual Steinbrenner-Billy Martin stories, and some others detailing the Yankees' rise to World Series titles in 1977-78 and moderate success into the '80s before their slow decline mainly due to Steinbrenner's meddling. Some funny stories in there.

 

I also enjoyed the books by former umpire Ron Luciano, mainly the first two "The Umpire Strikes Back," and "Strike Two."

[Homebrewer]

I have never read Luciano's books, although i have heard of them.

Going to put them on my list.

[Homebrewer]

Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s

Good stuff...lot's of things I had forgotten, (The Yankee players wife swapping affair) and others I never knew. (Charlie Finley having WS rings made on the cheap.. without any real gems)



http://www.amazon.com/Big-Hair-Plastic-Grass-Baseball/dp/1250007240