Spring Baseball

Aiming to supersede Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series, veteran baseball researcher Carney unpacks the history of the scandal to reveal new sources and new elements to the tale. Asking who knew what about the fix, when they knew it, and what they did about it, he answers with a fully documented study of scandal and cover-up that should prove essential for all baseball collections.

Another solid hitter from this press's strong baseball lineup. It sparkles as a great anecdotal story, with plenty of historical insight, about crosstown rivals who faced each other during World War II, when many baseball stars were in the armed forces. The book's appeal extends beyond the regional; for all comprehensive baseball collections.

This comprehensive history is published in association with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to coincide with special events to honor 2006 inductees from the Negro Leagues and earlier black baseball teams. With contributions from experts, the book sets this crucial part of baseball's story in its cultural context and profiles the great teams and the legendary players. An appendix offers new statistical analysis of major players. For all collections.

Morris (Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan) combines learning, precision, and devotion to produce this charming book, densely packed yet entirely accessible, tracing the evolution, through innovation, of almost every conceivable facet of baseball. He covers “The Things We Take for Granted,” such as the history of catchers signaling to pitchers, as well as changes in batting and pitching styles, management, and even the kinds of timeouts we endure from batters and commercials. This is heaven for fans of the game and a required addition to all baseball collections. (Vol. 2, The Game Off the Field, is scheduled for fall 2006.)

A stellar book by a veteran baseball writer, this will delight baseball fans for years to come. It presents sound scholarship to debunk the Doubleday baseball creation myth and brings to life the voices of the first Hall of Fame inductees—including Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack—who spoke at the inaugural ceremony in 1939. The majesty and merriment of baseball are here, the sunny days and simple pleasures, quirky personalities, and larger-than-life heroics. Recommended for all collections.

Rubenstein's offering is both a chronology, full of statistics and play-by-play information, and a narrative of every Chicago World Series that included either team, as seen through the eyes of the city's radio broadcasters and sportswriters. The latest triumph of the White Sox is included. Weisberger, through his book's focus on the all-Chicago series of 100 years ago, brings alive a foregone era laden with a mixture of oddities and similarities that resonate for us today. Both are for all baseball history collections.

Rubin (New York Daily News) goes behind the scenes with the 2005 New York Mets, a story revolving around the selection of Omar Minaya as general manager. Minaya signed both star pitcher Pedro Martinez from the Red Sox and Astro's slugger Carlos Beltran, creating the chemistry of “Los Mets.” Under new manager Willie Randolph, the season record improved, but this other New York ball club failed again to make the playoffs. Rubin relates the team's growing pains, a story in fact about a far less dysfunctional team that that of Jeff Pearlman's The Bad Guys Won! about the 1986 Mets champs. A useful update for baseball collections.

Surreal, perhaps, but all true! The authors cover ballplayers—and batboys, mascots, and spectators—who died unusual deaths, while active or retired, either on or off the field. Organizing their work in chapters by type of demise, Russo (www.thedeadballera.com) and Racz (The Home News Tribune, East Brunswick, NJ) present murders, suicides, alcoholism, fatal accidents, and death by various diseases, including the sexually transmitted kind. There's the guy bitten by a poisonous snake in the outfield in 1909. There are major stars like Thurman Munson and Roberto Clemente, who died in plane crashes. The AL batting champ for 1945 was on a train 13 years later that tumbled off a bridge. This is for comprehensive baseball or trivia collections.

The great member of the Boys of Summer good-naturedly offers brief analyses of his choices for the top position players, pitchers, and managers in Dodger (East and West Coast) history. His selections are hard to dispute, beginning with an infield lineup of backstop Campanella, first bagger Hodges, second baseman Robinson, shortstop Reese, and third sacker Vaughan. His outfield has Medwick, Reiser, and Furillo. Drysdale and Koufax are the top righthanded and southpaw pitchers, while Gagne heads the relief staff. Perhaps most surprisingly, Dressen stands as the leading Dodger manager, followed by Alston and Durocher. Modesty produced the most glaring omission, the Duke's necessary placement in the centerfield station. This fifth addition to Triumph's “Few and Chosen” series is for all baseball collections.

Gathered here are 50 stories of wondrous, and sometimes disastrous, moments for the BoSox, beginning with victory in the first World Series over 100 years ago and continuing with Cy Young's perfect game of 1904 (his mere no-hitters are not included), Tris Speaker's great catch in 1915, and multiple series wins and losses, culminating in the triumph of October 2004. The book will rekindle fond memories and propel new fans to Fenway, looking for the next 50 great Red Sox games. For all collections supporting these fans.

The former baseball commissioner delivers a series of interviews with ballplayers who played in the major leagues or the Negro leagues from the 1930s into the 1950s. Journeyman pitcher Elden Auker talks of teammate Hank Greenberg's battles against anti-Semitism, while legendary fireballer Bob Feller discusses his wartime service and his barnstorming with topflight African American players like Satchel Paige. Buck O'Neil discusses black baseball, hearkening back to Rube Foster, Martin Dihigo, and Oscar Charleston and the demise of the Negro Leagues. You'll also find Tommy Heinrich, Dom DiMaggio, and Warren Spahn, among others. For all baseball collections.

A feast of offerings, from the year of Baseball Digest's founding, 1942, through 2005, with many pieces covering earlier personalities (they often reminisced to one columnist or another). The coverage is from the best writers the game has known, including Red Smith, Heywood Broun, Arthur Daley, Roger Kahn, Leonard Koppett, and Ira Berkow. Don't have a complete run of Baseball Digest? Your collection needs this.

Each of these volumes, written by an expert team historian, is laced with the hard facts as well as the trivia, with an ample supply of photos and rosters of all players. In other words, they are not fluff and yet they manage to convey their weighty information in a light and anecdotal tone. Regional libraries should definitely make the relevant title available for their readers.

Building on the increased attention to women in sports, Heaphy (The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960) and May deepen the historical record on the nation's pastime. Alphabetical listings cover the players, managers, teams, leagues, and issues relating to women in baseball since the mid-19th century. There are ample cross references. An appendix focuses on the All American Girls Professional Baseball League of the World War II era (dramatized in A League of Their Own). For comprehensive collections both in baseball and women's studies.

A narrative chronology of the 29-year history of organized black baseball and a useful addition to the ever-expanding literature on the Jim Crowe version of the national game. This joins James A. Riley's Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, Dick Clark's The Negro Leagues Book, and Neil Lanctot's Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, as well as several titles by John Holway and Larry Lester. Hauser draws extensively from African American newspapers, the greatest resource for the early days of black ball. Best for comprehensive collections.

When two lawyers, one also a novelist (Kun) and the other a former reporter (Bloom), take on baseball, you can expect details and opinions. You will also get a smart, if often irreverent, addition to your baseball reference collection that explains how catchers balk, how to record four outs per inning, which really are the great ball parks, and just who were and who were not the greatest players. A book that can liven up any baseball conversation—and turn it into an argument!

The first biography of the gifted centerfielder (1938–1997) who challenged the reserve clause by which a team's right to a player was automatically extended in perpetuity. Belth, a Yankees blog host, traces Flood's rough childhood and the racism that he experienced on and off the field. When, after 12 years with the St. Louis Cardinals, with multiple Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances, Flood refused to accept a trade to the Phillies, he blazed a path for free agency but sacrificed his career. A fine read on a pioneer in baseball and African American history. For collections in both areas.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Maraniss's spirited biography of the first Latin American player named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Clemente (1934–72) belted his 3000th hit only months before taking off on a fatal mission of mercy from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua. Maraniss (First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton) traces the arc of Clemente's life from overcoming poverty and racism to becoming one of baseball's most graceful players at bat and in the field. A skilled athlete who was seemingly taken for granted, Clemente became an iconic figure for Latin America and world baseball. For all collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/05; the Spanish version will be released in July, ISBN 0-7432-9472-6.]

O'Neill's brother Paul, of Reds and Yankees fame, enchanted fans with his insightful book (with Burton Rocks), Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir. Here, Molly herself, former longtime food columnist for the New York Times, provides her own even richer and more textured account of the transcendant value of baseball within intertwined American lives. Filled with poignant and often rivetting anecdotes of her coming of age in Ohio with five younger brothers, her beautifully composed story is destined to be a best seller and is essential for all public libraries.

Syd Pollock (1901–68) was a New York promoter who owned the Indianapolis Clowns during the heyday of the barnstorming teams of black professional baseball. Devised as much for entertainment as athleticism, the team became a part of the Negro American League in 1943 and toned down the clowning. Syd's son Alan compiled this flavorsome and fond memoir about a team that could both take a chance on a 16-year old named Henry Aaron and inspire the comedy of the Harlem Globetrotters. Will deepen any baseball collection.