The 20 Best Baseball Books Ever

Esquire:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/best-baseball-books?src=soc_fcbks#slide-1

1. Five Seasons
2. Red Smith on Baseball
3. The Glory of Their Times
4. Only the Ball Was White
5. Veeck — As in Wreck
6. Moneyball
7. The Pitch That Killed
8. A Day in the Bleachers
9. The Wrong Stuff
10. The Bronx Zoo
11. Baseball's Great Experiment
12. Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud
13. October 1964
14. Ball Four
15. Baseball When the Grass Was Real
16. Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball
17. Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?
18. Don't Look Back
19. Seasons in Hell
20. Boys of Summer

How many have you read? What do you think of the list?

 

I've read 10.

Surprise Brosnan's "The Long Season" didn't make the list, and that "Boys of Summer" was ranked so low.

 

I've read 12.

Very pleased to see "Seasons in Hell," "The Wrong Stuff" and "The Pitch That Killed" on that list. All excellent, and not widely known. And you can't go wrong with Roger Angell in the No. 1 spot.

"Only the Ball Was White" is an important book, but it's not an enjoyable read by any means. Surprised "Ball Four" is so low.

And "The Bronx Zoo" is fairly pedestrian and breezy. I loved it when I was 14 years old, but it's not at all well-written. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning" is far superior about the Yankees of that era.

 

Anybody who thinks Joe Pepitone's book is better than Ball Four is hopelessly full of shit.

BTW, loved the link: "How To Choose The Right Cologne For Your Lifestyle." It's like someone is doing a parody of Esquire.

Back to giving us all lessons on how to be a man.

 

Ranking 13 books ahead of Ball Four, including The Bronx Zoo, makes that list mean not a thing.

 

Another book, that maybe wouldn't have made the top 20, but one that I enjoyed is "On a Clear Day, They Could See Seventh Place", about the worst baseball teams of all time. A fun read.

 

Crap list, as I expected.
I submit Dan Okrent's Nine Innings.
He somehow stumbled upon a creative/reductive narrative style years before Esquire invented it.

 

"Bottom of the 33rd" is the best baseball book I've read in a long time.

 

"Babe," by Robert Creamer.

You cannot know baseball if you do not know Babe Ruth.

I'm done here.

 

"Baseball in the Garden of Eden:The Secret History of the Early Game" despite the author's detour into theosophy.

Also wod put "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself" somewhere in a top 20 list.

 

I've read 8.

I, like the masses, can't believe Ball Four is so low — especially behind some of the ones on the list.

I really like the DiMaggio book by Richard Ben Cramer and was surprised it's not on there. I thought "The Unforgettable Season" was pretty good too. I've ready too many baseball books without looking over my stacks to see if I'm missing any non-fiction ones.