At least 6 years ago I picked up, in a used book store, the book "Willie Mays " by James Hirsch. Had forgotten about it but now have amost finished it and it’s great, it is not only Willie Mays’ history and baseball history but American history.
I can remember now as a kid of 10 or 12 (early 70s) reading paperback books like “Great Linebackers of the NFL” or “Great Quarterbacks of the NFL” . “Punt, Pass and Kick” series. Anyone remember those?
Can’t remember one about baseball but I’m sure I read a few. And I do remember reading Leo Durocher’s “Nice Guys Finish Last.” And I read “The Bad Guys Won” about the 1986 Mets
I am familar with, although haven’t read, “The Boys of Summer” and “Ball Four”.
“Crazy ‘08” by Cait Murphy is a fascinating tale about the 1908 season, a couple of memorable pennant races, and the last time the Cubs won the World Series (before 2016, anyway). It’s a great book.
I really like “Lords of the Realm” by John Helyar too, although it’s less about the game on the field and more about the owners and how they kept their hold on power over the sport. Well-written and interesting.
It’s hard to go wrong with Roger Angell - I’ve re-read “Five Seasons” and “Late Innings” multiple times. They’ll take you back to the players and teams and seasons of the 1970s.
And if you like historical rankings of players thrown in with the miscellaneous side thoughts of a restless baseball mind you’d like Bill James’ “Historical Baseball Abstract” (it’s much more interesting than the title gives it credit for).
While autobiography and memoirs can be hit or miss, I read an old copy of Joe Garagiola’s “Baseball is a Funny Game” years ago and found it fascinating. A look back at a league and way of doing baseball that simply no longer exists.
Veeck As In Wreck by Bill Veeck. Describes managing a ballclub with special emphasis on it as an entertainment business.
(Minor offshoot: If you enjoy that, be sure to read his book about running a racetrack in Thirty Tons a Day. In it, he makes one remark of how much nicer the “racetrack” people are as compared to the “ballclub” people.)
Something I learned from that book.
That’s Garagiola looking out the window above the 483 sign.
He had been traded to the Giants after the World Series deadline and wasn’t allowed to suit up and sit in the dugout. He watched the whole Series from the clubhouse.
Seconding the “Historical Baseball Abstract” – James digs into what baseball was like, in each decade, as well as profiling the best players. The version I have is a little dated now (it only goes through the 1990s), but it’s still a fascinating read.
Bob Uecker’s autobiographical book, “Catcher in the Wry,” is a very fun read, though I believe it’s long out of print.
One of my favorite books of all time is If I Never Get Back by Daryl Brock. There’s a hint of science fiction to it, as a modern man is transported back in time to tour with the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. And he meets Mark Twain. But otherwise it’s a historical fiction novel about 19th century baseball. SO fun!
My favorite baseball book of all time is If At First, which was written by former Mets 1B, current broadcaster, and Seinfeld superstar Keith Hernandez. The book is a bit unusual in that it focuses on a season in which the subject team did not win the World Series - specifically, the 1985 season in which the Mets narrowly missed the playoffs.
It’s a record of that season from Hernandez’s perspective in daily diary form - so there are 162 “chapters,” one for each game. It gets into the sort of day-to-day business of being a baseball player in a way that more high-level memoirs - which tend to focus on highlights - never do. I’ve probably read it a hundred times. I might go read it again this weekend.
For some representation in the Negro Leagues, there’s “I Was Right On Time” by Buck O’Neil and “The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Theough Buck O’Neil’s America” by Joe Posnanski.
If you’re looking for a great book about baseball in general, rather than one about a specific player, team, or season, Leonard Koppett’s The New Thinking Fan’s Guide To Baseball cannot be overpraised. The book is a comprehensive look at the way baseball works, both as a sport on the field, and as a business off it. He goes into everything from hitting, pitching, and fielding, to groundskeeping, salary negotiations, and the press; he also gives a bit of the history of the game. Koppett was a longtime baseball journalist and sportswriter whose career stretched from the end of World War II to his death in 2003, so he has plenty of great stories. But he avoids nostalgia and sentimentality, and shines a clear light on the game. If you’re at all interested in baseball, The New Thinking Fan’s Guide To Baseball is well worth a read.
Hernandez does something similar in Pure Baseball; he watches two games (one live, one on TV), and analyzes them pitch by pitch, examining what’s happening, what the pitcher’s thinking, what the batter’s thinking, what the managers are thinking. He explains baseball strategies - when a hit-and-run make sense, when to put on a shift. It’s an interesting deep dive into the game as seen from the player’s eyes.
I don’t know about “classic”, but an entertaining read is, “The Umpire Strikes Back”, by Ron Luciano. He was full of humor and wit. It was shocking to me that he committed suicide, but I guess you just never know what people are enduring in their lives.
The Glory Of Their Times is a tremendously enjoyable compendium of the upbringing and careers of old-time ballplayers, from Sam Crawford to Hank Greenberg, in their own words. It covers Hall of Famers, mid-rank players and relative unknowns. Great photos too.
Any baseball book by Roger Angell is well worth reading.
Eight Men Out, about the Black Sox scandal is excellent.
I thought I remembered a book written by Gilberto Dihigo was being released in English. I can find books in Spanish only though, so I’m probably mistaken. If you read Spanish, I’d certainly recommend it, Martin Dihigo sounds like quite the player and figure in baseball in the Caribbean and Mexico as well as the Negro League.
If you’re up for possible reading online, there’s a series of articles written to go along with Baseball Reference adding Negro League players and stats to the site making them equal to the National and American Leagues.
