Baseball Books of Our Eternal Youth

A few weeks ago, I was catching up with an ol' college friend Tom, who shares the same passion about baseball and more specifically, baseball books that I do. We traded reading suggestions, much like boys swapping baseball cards. He remembered I was  a Cub fan, but I did not recall that he was a follower of the Yankees. This didn't surprise me  because the Yankees were owned by CBS from 1964 to 1973 and the Game of the Week broadcast was usually a Yankees game. ( I didn't become a Cubs fan until probably the mid-60s. I remember starting to dislike the St. Louis Cardinals as early as 1967.) I guess the Yankees did dominate at this time as evidenced in this weird picture of my older brother Neil and I wearing Yankee hats.  My younger sister Kay was there too. Our family dog Pepper was looking back at our father who was resting in the shade. In distant background were the cornfields of Illinois, far from the Yankees of the Bronx. Such was influence of that franchise.

I sent Tom a link to my baseball category from the blog, and in exchange he sent me a list of his favorites. Tom who pitched in college also likes  books about pitchers such as Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson, and Sparky Lyle. Here's several others from Tom's list with few of my comments in parenthesis:

• Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams and One Season to Remember (2009) by John Feinstein. A book about Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina in 2007. I recall the book alternated between each pitcher as the season progressed. (I have read a few of Feinstein's books including Season on the Brink (1986), the one about Indiana University basketball coach and sociopath Bobby Knight. Tom and I were undergrads at IU when the Hoosiers won the 1976 National Championship.)
• Clearing the Bases (2002) by Allen Barra. I really enjoyed this book.  This book "answers" the great baseball questions. (Yes, one of the early practitioners-writers of looking at statistics more closely to resolve baseball debates.)
• The Boys of Summer (1972) by Roger Kahn. A book about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940's and 1950's. ( I am ashamed to say I haven't read it, but I need to since  I was born the day after the Dodgers won their only World Series in 1955. )
• The Glory of Their Times (1966) by Lawrence Ritter.  A book about the late 1800 and early 1900 baseball stars. ( I have it on my shelves and it deserves a re-reading. This was a book that inspired a lot of writers to find out where a lot of all time greats ended up and then interviewing them.)
• Throwback: A Big-League Catcher Tells How the Game is Really Played (2014) by Jason Kendall and Lee Judge.  This book is surprisingly good.  I always liked Jason Kendall, and this book didn't change my feelings. (The Pirates catcher with uncommon speed for a receiver always murdered the Cubs.)
• The Baseball Codes: Bean Balls, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime (2011) by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca.  A good book about the "unwritten" rules of baseball. 

I heard and read several of his choices but one of his selections intrigued me,  a series of books by Duane Decker about the Blue Sox. Tom writes:

When I was a kid, I read a series of fictional baseball books by Duane Decker.  The stories were about a team called the Blue Sox (very much like the Yankees of the 50's).  The stories ran for years and the lineup of players were consistent from book to book.  Each book was about a new player breaking into the lineup.  In fact, if you read the whole series, you can see a player break into the lineup and 10-15 books later the player has aged and will be replaced by a new player.  The books are out of print and are very expensive to purchase.  I have collected 8-9 of the books. 

Tom is not joking. Those Decker books are pricey. Get thee to the attic.

P.S. After posting, Tom sent me additional offerings. I put them in the comments.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Murray Browne]

Tom wrote me with some additional baseball book suggestions.

Here are some gems..."A Pitcher's Story, by Roger Angell.  This is a book about David Cone.  This book has some outstanding pitching tips.  Plus, David Cone was a good "pitcher"..not a "thrower".   Another book that I really enjoyed is "Baseball When the Grass Was Real" by Donald Honig.  This book is made up of excerpts of interviews the author had with 18 different players of the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's.  Some of them are Charley Gehringer, Johnny Mize, Cool Papa Bell, Lefty Grove, Ted Lyons, Billy Herman, Rip Sewell and Bob Feller. 

Another book I enjoyed was "Lefty Grove: American Original" written by Jim Kaplan.  In my opinion, Grove is a vastly underrated pitcher.  And, he's in the Hall of Fame!  

Last thing.  There is a writer named Troy Soos.  He has written 8-10 books with the premise of the main character is a major league baseball player back in the early 1900's (maybe up to around 1930).  They are murder mysteries that take place and the main character (Mickey Rawlings) somehow cracks the case while being an average major league ballplayer.  The stories are "historical fiction" and have real players involved as well as the fictional Mickey Rawlings.  I think I am the only person that has read this author and I see he has 3 or 4 books I haven't read.