BaseballGB

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, (Harper Perennial Modern Classic, 2006), 474 pages. The Brooklyn Dodgers of the early Fifties deserve a place in the annals of baseball history. Roger Kahn’s much-loved book has ensured that this is the case. The games, the players, and the struggles against racial prejudice will always be vividly [...]

Sports Illustrated: Great Baseball Writing, edited by Rob Fleder, (Sports Illustrated Books, 2007), 557 pages. From its first edition in August 1954, Sports Illustrated has been a weekly feature of many American sports fans’ lives.  To mark the fiftieth anniversary of its conception, Sports Illustrated published this collection of fifty-two articles, ranging from January 1956 [...]

The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary by Paul Dickson (Harvest, 1999), 579 pages Anyone unfamiliar with baseball has to face a steep learning curve during their early forays into the sport. Whether watching or reading about a game, it soon becomes apparent that baseball has its own language; a lexicon containing dingers, sacrifice flies and RBIs. [...]

“It Ain’t Over ’til it’s Over: The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book” edited by Steven Goldman (Basic Books, 2007), 457 pages. Baseball Prospectus are at the forefront of sabermetrics: the discipline of statistical research into baseball. With their revolutionary statistics and forthright views, it’s fair to say they are loved and loathed in equal measure [...]

“Baseball Field Guide: An in-depth illustrated guide to the complete rules of baseball” by Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger, (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006), 240 pages. Baseball is a sport governed by a myriad of rules. Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger’s attempt to to provide a user-friendly guide to them for players and spectators alike is [...]

“The Joy of Keeping Score” by Paul Dickson, (Walker & Company, 2007), 117 pages. There seems to be two distinct camps within the world of baseball fans: those who love keeping score and those who are mystified by its appeal. The former will find “The Joy of Keeping Score” to be a real treat, the [...]

“The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics” by Alan Schwarz, (St Martin’s Press, 2004), 270 pages. It’s a popular misconception that the infatuation with statistics in baseball is a product of the recent computer-obsessed age. Alan Schwarz debunks this myth in “The Numbers Game” by charting the history of the sport from the mid-nineteenth [...]

The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Baseball by Leonard Koppett, (Sport classic Books, 2004), 442 pages. Leonard Koppett was one of the most respected baseball (and basketball) writers of his generation when he died in June 2003. He spent over sixty years working as a sports journalist and authored seventeen books, most notably “The Thinking Fan’s [...]

It is an uninspiring premise at first glance: a game-by-game account of the toothless Tigers’ 1999 season. Yet this year was about something far more important for the city of Detroit.

“Moneyball” has been described as the most influential sports book that has ever been written