Baseball's Best Books

Some fiction, some non, but all favorite books about America's favorite past time.
Updated September 19, 2022
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The natural
Malamud, Bernard.
CD
Shoeless Joe
Kinsella, W. P.
Paper Book
The inspiration for the beloved film Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella is the story about the beauty and history of baseball, and the power and endurance of a dream. "A moonlit novel about baseball, dreams, family, the land, and literature."--Sports Illustrated "If you...
The celebrant : a novel
Greenberg, Eric Rolfe.
Paper Book
The first two decades of the 20th century were a time of promise and innocence in America. Hardworking immigrants could achieve the American dream, and heroes were really heroic. Greenberg authentically chronicles the real-life saga of the first national baseball hero, Christy Mathewson, and the...
Moneyball [the art of winning an unfair game]
Lewis, Michael (Michael M.)
Audiobook
Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the giant offices of major league teams and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over...
The art of fielding
Harbach, Chad.
Paper Book
A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this widely acclaimed tale about love, life, and baseball. "Wonderful ... a novel that is every bit as entertaining as it is affecting." --The New York Times "First...
The boys of summer
Kahn, Roger.
Paper Book
"A moving elegy . . . [to] the best team the majors ever saw . . . the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s."  -- New York Times The classic narrative of growing up within shouting distance of Ebbets Field, covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and what's happened to...
We are the ship : the story of Negro League baseball
Nelson, Kadir.
Paper Book
In this New York Times bestselling classic, Caldecott Medal-winning artist Kadir Nelson tells the incredible story of baseball's unsung heroes--with stunning, larger-than-life paintings and lively, accessible prose. Features nearly fifty iconic oil paintings, and...
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. : J. Henry Waugh, Prop
Coover, Robert.
Paper Book
As owner of every team in the league, Henry is flush with pride in a young rookie who is pitching a perfect game. When the pitcher completes the miracle game, Henry's life lights up. But then the rookie is killed by a freak accident, and this"death" affects Henry's life in ways unimaginable. In...
Queen of the Negro leagues : Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles
Overmyer, James.
Paper Book
The first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, there was no one like Effa Manley in the sports world of the 1930s and 1940s. She was a sophisticated woman who owned a baseball team. She never shrank from going head to head with men, who dominated the ranks of sports executives and...
Baseball's great experiment : Jackie Robinson and his legacy
Tygiel, Jules.
Paper Book
In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Jules Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and...
How baseball happened : Outrageous lies exposed! The true story revealed
Gilbert, Thomas W.
Paper Book
The fascinating, true, story of baseball's amateur origins. "Explores the conditions and factors that begat the game in the 19th century and turned it into the national pastime....A delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat."--Paul...
The last hero : a life of Henry Aaron
Bryant, Howard 1968-
Paper Book
In the thirty-four years since his retirement, Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (rbis, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five...

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