Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

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Morris Ragland
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#16 Post by Morris Ragland »

I've got The Only Rule is it has to Work on my shelf waiting to be read.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#17 Post by Jason »

I just started The Baseball Economist by JC Bradbury. Interesting take on the economics within the game...
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#18 Post by Vic »

So, only about a year late to the party ... but what the heck:

1. The Hidden Game of Baseball, John Thorn and Pete Palmer
2. Ball Four
3. The Long Season, Jim Brosnan (Ball Four before Ball Four ...)
4. The Summer Game, Roger Angell (any of Angell’s books are excellent)
5. The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., Robert Coover (about a guy who’s obsessed with his fictional baseball simulation - perhaps a bit close to the bone ...)
6. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy and Shoeless Joe, both by W.P. Kinsella
7. Any of the Bill James Baseball Abstracts
8. Eight Men Out by Elliot Asinof
9. Moneyball, Michael Lewis
10. Baseball Prospectus and Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster (both annuals)
11. Plus others ...

Ok, I’m a nerd. I admit it ...
Last edited by Vic on Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#19 Post by Borealis »

I think Bob brought up the Universal Baseball one previously - that was an interesting read!!
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#20 Post by Lions »

I'm half surprised I've never commented in this thread and half not. I don't read much. More accurately, I read every day... to my kids... and hardly anything for myself.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Willie's Time by Charles Einstein.

I'm currently reading Double Play: Baseball Genius 2, by Tim Green and Derek Jeter to my 6-year-old. He LOVES baseball and the Yankees, so that's a good place to start. Despite being an excellent reader, I didn't have any success getting him to read Matt Christopher books on his own. He got about half way through The Boy Who Only Hit Homers and then lost interest. Anyway, through the first quarter of the book, DP:BG2 isn't terrible. It actually gives a decent smattering of real world issues outside of the baseball. The chapters are frequently really short, which works for us. The book itself is really long, so we'll see how it goes. We haven't read the first book, which doesn't appear to be a problem at this point. I think it's probably more suited to a kid around a few years older.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#21 Post by Fishermen »

With my fading eyesight these days I tend to mainly listen to audiobooks. One of the better baseball ones I have listened to ( as you can imagine there's not too many baseball audiobooks available in England is the Gil Hodges biography by Danny Peary & Tom Clavin and I'm currently listening to a book called The Shortstop written in 1909 by Zane Gray. I found it on one of these free audiobook sites that usually never have anything you want to listen to but this one (Librivox} came up trumps with this interesting one about a young lad starting out in small town baseball at the turn of the 1900's
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#22 Post by Vic »

If either Shoeless Joe or the Iowa Baseball Confederacy are available on audio, they’re both quite good (Shoeless Joe, I’m sure you know, was the basis for the movie Field of Dreams. One other that might be available is The Natural by Bernard Malamud. It’s considered something of a classic and was the basis for the Robert Redford movie. It’s a bit odd, but interesting...
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#23 Post by Borealis »

Say it Ain't So Joe, was an excellent account of Jackson's career and the Black Sox Scandle - it'll really make you realize how screwed he got... baseball really needs to right that wrong!
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#24 Post by Vic »

I’ll have to check that one out, Michael. The Black Sox scandal and Joe Jackson are just plain fascinating to me.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#25 Post by Denny »

The baseball-related book I'm reading currently is Forever Blue, by Michael D'Antonio. It's a biography of Walter O'Malley, the fellow who moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#26 Post by Vic »

That’s got to be interesting. O’Malley is a towering figure in baseball history, and the Brooklyn move was pivotal.
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#27 Post by Denny »

Claymores wrote:That’s got to be interesting. O’Malley is a towering figure in baseball history, and the Brooklyn move was pivotal.
It is, though it is moving somewhat slowly--I'm about halfway through, and he has only just now become the majority owner! So I am anticipating an action-packed second half :grin:
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Re: Hey, Let's Talk About Baseball Writing

#28 Post by Vic »

In honor of Opening Day, I’m diving into Ron Rapoport’s new biography of Ernie Banks, “Let’s Play Two.” I’m about 20 pages in, and enjoying it greatly! It’s a clear-eyed bio by the excellent former Chicago Sun Times columnist and NPR contributor. Great way to ease into the season ... plus my Cubbies destroyed Texas to open the season.
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