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
Bernard Malamud
Paper Book
Malamud uses the fanatical and aggressive world of professional baseball to mirror contemporary society.
Shoeless Joe
W. P. Kinsella
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...
If I Never Get Back
Darryl Brock
Paper Book
Sam Fowler is taking a modern-day Amtrak home to San Francisco when an unscheduled stop somewhere west of Cleveland gives him the opportunity to stretch his legs. Instead, Sam finds that time has stretched and mysteriously transported him back to 1869. Bewildered at first, Sam soon meets up with...
The Great American Novel
Philip Roth
Paper Book
The Brothers K
David James Duncan
Paper Book
Bang the Drum Slowly
Mark Harris
DVD
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Michael Lewis
Paper Book
"One of the best baseball--and management--books out.... Deserves a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame."--Forbes Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy...
The Art of Fielding
Chad Harbach
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
Roger Kahn
Paper Book
This is a book about some young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s in such places as Reading, Pennsylvania; Anderson, Indiana; Plainfield, New Jersey; Woonsocket, Rhode Island; and then went on to play for one of the most exciting professional teams that the major leagues...
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
Kadir Nelson
Paper Book
"We are the ship; all else the sea."-Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats...
Hoopla
Harry Stein
Paper Book
When eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, the team became known as the "Black Sox." Hoopla blends the narrative of team member George Weaver with the view of Luther Pond, who exposed the scandal. Filled with cameo portraits of prominent sports...
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.
Robert Coover
Considered one of the best baseball novels of all time, this black comedy about a discontented businessman's obsession with a fantasy baseball league of his own creation is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" meets William Gaddis meets John Updike's Rabbit, Run. Somewhere in...
The Veracruz Blues
Mark Winegardner
Paper Book
"When big-league ballplayers return from the war, unhappy with the contracts the club owners offer them, the wealthy Pasquel brothers pay unheard-of salaries to lure disaffected players - Sal Maglie, Vern Stephens, Danny Gardella, Max Lanier among them - to Mexico. When they get there, they see that...
Queen of the Negro Leagues : Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles
James Overmyer
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
Jules Tygiel
Paper Book
In 1997 the American people will celebrate with great fanfare and publicity the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's explosive entrance into major league baseball. Robinson has become a national icon, his name a virtual synonym for pathbreaker. Indeed, much has transpired between this young...
How Baseball Happened: Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed
Thomas W. Gilbert
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
Howard Bryant
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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