New to baseball

Hi folks,

Although I saw a couple of Phillies games when I was a kid (grew up in Jersey), I consider myself new to baseball. I fear being accused of being a jump-on-the-bandwagon sort, because my team is the Houston Astros, but I swear their success if not why I started watching!

I've lived in Houston for 15 years, and moved here to follow my soon-to-be-ex-husband. He's Canadian, and I became a definite hockey fan over the years. But I wanted/needed something enjoyable that was totally unrelated to him, and a friend offered to introduce me to baseball.

And I love it! I guess I knew on some level how many nuances there are to this game, but I didn't really know it. It's fascinating!

Some years back I read Shoeless Joe and The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella. I've got a collection of baseball short stories on the way, and I'm looking to read a good nonfiction book -- maybe the book the movie "Moneyball" is based on. I'm open to other recs as well.

I'd recommend The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter as a great book to start with.

I found Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger gripping when I read it a few summers back.

According to the LibraryThing algorithms, Moneyball is the most commonly owned book by folks in this group, while The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is the "most characteristic" book owned by folks in this group. I really like the latter. It will take you from the beginnings of major league baseball to about 2000, talking about how both strategies and the look and feel of the game have evolved.

The Astros haven't built up as much of the lore that makes for fun baseball books as many other teams. You might look at Jerry Izenberg, The Greatest Game Ever Played, though I think it's told from a Mets perspective.

You can find a nice mix of history and nostalgia in Summer of 49 by David Halberstam. The comparisons of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio are very interesting, with lots of fun anecdotes, about an era when baseball really was the national pastime.

For an absorbing account of the run-up to free agency and the role of race in baseball, check out The Way It Is by Curt Flood. It's out of print but it's not hard to find a used copy.

For funny literary fiction, try Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc..

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Another very good book about the relatively early days of major league baseball is The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball by Frank Deford. I also recommend Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye. This autobiography of the amazing Satchel page will give you an overview of the Negro leagues, among many other things.

There are a zillion great baseball history books. Those are just a couple that came to mind for me. Have fun!

>7 rocketjk:

Thanks!

I'll second that Robert Coover mention above.

Here's a pdf of the original Harper's publication of Don Delillo's Pafko at the Wall — http://dumpendebat.net/static-content/delillo/DeLillo-Pafko_At_The_Wall-Oct1992....

It's a great confabulation of "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" — the either clutch or heartbreaking (depending on whether you were a NY Giants or Brooklyn Dodgers fan), come-from-behind, walk-off home run by Bobby Thomson in 1951, one of the most iconic moments in MLB history.

Andy Pafko was the Dodger's left fielder who turned and watched helplessly as the ball soared out of reach and into the stands. Delillo later included the novella as the beginning of Underworld: A novel.

>9 absurdeist:

Wow, thanks!

By the way, if you are interested in a higher literary quality of non-fiction baseball writing, the collections of essays of Roger Angell from the New Yorker, e.g. Season Ticket, are quite good. They are mostly musings about things happening at the time they were written, which was quite a while ago, so some context might be lost.

The consummate baseball tell-all is Ball Four by Jim Bouton. He focuses on his years with the Yankees, but he also has some colorful stories about the end of his career, which was with the Houston Astros.

>12 sipthereader:

That's definitely tempting, then. :-)

I'd recommend two : The Soul of Baseball and Baseball: A Literary Anthology