The 20 Best Baseball Books Ever

Vombatus, "So You Think You Know Baseball" was a regular feature of the Saturday Evening Post way back when I was a kid. I had one of those books you mentioned when I was about eight or nine and Ike was President.

 

"The Echoing Green" is a notable omission, IMHO.

 

No love?

 

It says very clearly only non-fiction books were considered, LTL.

 

Excellent.

 

I actually clicked again on this thread to mention that I thought "I'm Glad You Didn't Take it Personally" should be on the list. I don't, however, agree it was better than "Ball Four."

 

Two of my favorites are by Leigh Montville:

 

Glad to see Staman acknowledge Roger Angell's essay compilations. John Helyar's The Lords of the Realm needs a prominent mention, too, as does Halberstam's Summer of '49. Ball Four is clearly the best baseball book.

 

Good one. Fascinating look at the "business history" of baseball. Lent my copy years ago to a friend who was a banker, and never got it back.

 

"Lords Of The Realm" is an excellent addition, as is Marvin Miller's book. Much better and more informative than Roger Angell's stale tweedy bullshit.

 

"Lords of the Realm" and "A Whole Different Ball Game" are probably pretty good bookends on the business/administrative end of baseball.

The Bill Veeck books (especially the updated versions put out in the 1980s shortly before Veeck's death) give a pretty funny look at a middle ground: an owner whose basic sympathies lay with the players.

Veeck's account of the arbitrator's decision came down in the Andy Messersmith case in 1975 is classic. Basically the owners felt there was no chance whatsoever the arbitrator would rule against him and were taken completely by surprise when he did.

As part of the background Veeck (and Ed Linn) recounted how Miller and the MLBPA had made several intermediary offers regarding arbitration and free agency which would have been dramatically more favorable to the owners, but the owners were just so hell bent about not giving the players even a single inch they decided to go all-in on the bet the arbitrator was going to rule for them.

Of course all this came down just as Veeck closed the deal on his re-purchase of the White Sox, blowing the entire salary structure of the game out of the water and making it pretty much impossible to operate an MLB team as a stand-alone syndicate without a major corporate parent organization to absorb institutional costs.