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xpress34
03-14-2009, 08:39 PM
Xpress 34’s Baseball Library



America's Pastime

Ballparks Yesterday & Today
Baseball Archaeology
Baseball (Ken Burns)
Baseball - The Biographical Encyclopedia
Baseball - The Perfect Game : An All-Star Anthology
Baseball's Book of Firsts
Baseball's Golden Age (Conlon Photos)
Baseball's 100 Greatest Players (Sporting News)

Classic Baseball (Iooss Photos)

Echoes from the Ballpark
Every Pitcher Tells a Story

Game of Shadows
Girls of Summer
Glove Affairs
Guys, Dolls & Curveballs

Historic Ballparks - A Panoramic Vision

Inside Baseball (Vintage)

Jinxed

Kings of the Hill

Men at Work
Mets Media Guide 2008
MLB Hometown Heroes
My Greatest Day in Baseball (Vintage)

Nolan Ryan – Fireballer
Nolan Ryan - From Alvin to Cooperstown (Sporting News)

Nolan Ryan – Miracle Man AUTOGRAPHED
Nolan Ryan Pitcher's Bible (I would like this in Hardback!)
Nolan Ryan : Texas Rangers Hall of Fame Legend
Nolan Ryan - Throwing Heat AUTOGRAPHED
Nolan Ryan - The Authorized Pictorial History AUTOGRAPHED
Nolan Ryan - The Authorized Pictorial History (Leather Cover) AUTOGRAPHED
Nolan Ryan - The Road to Cooperstown AUTOGRAPHED
Now I Can Die in Peace

100 Years of Baseball
100 Years of Major League Baseball
Only the Ball was White

Play Ball
Play Baseball the Ripken Way AUTOGRAPHED

Rawlings Presents Big Sticks
Reel Baseball
Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants and Stars AUTOGRAPHED

Smithsonian Baseball
Stan Musial

Take Me Out to the Ballpark
The Barry Halper Collection
The Baseball Book (Sports Illustrated)
The Baseball Anthology
The Baseball Encyclopedia (1969)
The Baseball HOF 50th Anniversary Book
The Baseball Scrapbook
The Baseball Timeline
The Catcher was a Spy
The Gashouse Gang
The Life and Times of Nolan Ryan
The Love of Baseball
The Mick
The Mutual Baseball Almanac (Vintage)
The National Pastime
The National Game
The Oldest Rookie
The Only Game in Town
The Other Game - Nolan Ryan
The Pocket Baseball Encyclopedia (Vintage)
The Tao of Baseball
The Timeline History of Baseball
The Treasures of Major League Baseball
The Way We Were – Baseball
The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of Baseball
Time for Paradise
20th Century Baseball Chronicle

Unhittable

Vindicated - Jose Canseco AUTOGRAPHED

Warning Track AUTOGRAPHED
Watching Baseball Smarter
When Baseball Went to War
Who Invented the Game (Ken Burns)

Yankees Suck!
__________________________________________________ ________


As you can tell, my Library consists of Baseball only... love to see what everyone else has...


- Chris

gingi79
03-14-2009, 09:26 PM
The Sports Bestiary by George Plimpton. If you haven't read it, worth a borrow from the local Library as the wit and humor is right on.

Cather was a Spy about Moe Berg was eye opening and well written

Best Ports Writing of 1992. The Dave Barry Article about the Miami Heat is one of the best articles I have ever read. Humorous, insightful and well written.

2000mvpfan
03-14-2009, 09:36 PM
..great list-but you forgot one of the all-time greats:"Ball Four" by Jim Bouton...as hilarious and eye-opening (especially on the subject of players and "greenies"-even then players were trying to get an edge!) today as it was in 1970!

Joe

xpress34
03-14-2009, 10:57 PM
..great list-but you forgot one of the all-time greats:"Ball Four" by Jim Bouton...as hilarious and eye-opening (especially on the subject of players and "greenies"-even then players were trying to get an edge!) today as it was in 1970!

Joe

Joe -

I definately need to add Ball Four to the library as well as Money Ball...

If you want a GREAT recommendation from my Libraray, pick up 'Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants and Stars'. Written by Robert 'Bob' Motley - the last surviving Negro League Umpire about his trials and tribulations... very well written...

- Chris

bigtruck260
03-14-2009, 11:03 PM
The Baseball Book - Sports Illustrated
The Best of Tom Verducci
Throwing Heat - Nolan Ryan
The Gas House Gang
The ST. LOUIS Baseball Reader
The Card - Michael O'Keefe
A Well Paid Slave (Curt Flood Bio)
Operation Bullpen - Kevin Nelson
Driven From Within - Michael Jordan
Juiced - Jose Canseco
Dark Trade - (Insider account of pro boxing)
Various Sports Almanacs


I have a few more, but my 'library' is chock full of so much other stuff.
Right now I am reading a book called: The Year of Living Biblically...
and before that, I re-read Hells Angels by Hunter Thompson.

Come to think of it, I have every Hunter Thompson book he ever wrote. He is probably a more interesting than any baseball team or player. Might be why I named my son Hunter after him...

ironmanfan
03-15-2009, 09:33 AM
Along these lines, a web-site that I've found helpful to catalog/inventory my book collection (baseball and otherwise) is www.librarything.com (http://www.librarything.com)

It's a free web-site for your first 200 books and I have found it extremely easy to use and useful.

Bill
whhp72@yahoo.com

princip
03-15-2009, 09:54 AM
These are essential in any NFL library.

NFL books by David Boss (http://www.greenglare.com/images/nfl_books.gif)

godwulf
03-15-2009, 10:48 AM
I second the recommendation for libraything.com. It's very, very cool. They even have discussion boards on just about every reading interest you can imagine.

Book recommendations not already mentioned:

You Gotta Have Wa - an eye-opening account of Baseball as it's played in Japan. Timeless and fascinating.

The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty - chapters going into the recent, pre-2001 stories and histories of Torre, Steinbrenner, Paul O'Neill, Jeter, etc, interspersed with a nearly pitch-by-pitch account of Game 7 of the '01 World Series.

Love Me, Hate Me - very little love in this well-researched book on Bonds.

At the moment, I'm reading a book called Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound With a Minor League Misfit by Matt McCarthy, whom I met at a book-signing earlier this month. McCarthy is a Yale man who spent a year - 2002 - playing for the rookie league Provo Angels, and is now a medical resident at a New York hospital. He's gotten a huge amount of flack from former teammates, who claim that at least some of his stories are made up or exaggerated, but it's a funny and insightful book, in any case, and I suspect that it gives a pretty accurate account of what it's like to play in that league.

xpress34
03-15-2009, 11:54 AM
GW and IronMan -

Thanks for the info on the Library link... I'll be checking it out.

I forgot a couple of books on my list:

Beyond Belief - The Josh Hamilton Story - VERY Moving and deeply detailed encounter of Josh's ups and downs...

Tales from the Rockies - a brief history of highlight moments from the Rockies history from day 1 to the 2007 World Series.

Juiced - Jose Canseco - This book definately changed my opinions of the man... and has been very insightful during the recent Steroids News...

I just finished the 1st two listed here... the Hamilton book was so intense I sat down and read the book cover to cover in one day.

From my original list, I am taking Watching Baseball Smarter with me on my Spring Training trip to read on my downtime and my flight there and back.

And a final recommendation from my original list - Men at Work by George Will. It gives four very distinct and different views of how the game is looked at from four very distinct and different individuals - Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken, Orel Hershiser and Tony LaRussa.

- Chris

ironmanfan
03-15-2009, 12:17 PM
Chris:

I agree that George Will's " Men At Work" is a very underrated book (would reccommend it to any baseball fan; not just fans of Ripken, Gwynn, etc.).

As an aside, I have a Sunday season ticket plan @ Camden Yards and see George Will at the ballpark virtually every game (at least that was the case last season). I would be more than happy to get your copy signed by him if you have any interest (just let me know).

Bill
whhp72@yahoo.com

trsent
03-15-2009, 12:49 PM
I just finished Planet of the Umpires by Ken Kaiser (with Dave Fisher) and it was a fine read but nothing special. I felt like I was reading another Ron Luciano book since the co-author was the same for both.

I personally think two of the funniest baseball books of all time are The Umpire Strikes Back by Ron Luciano (with Dave Fisher) and Catcher in the Wry by Bob Uecker.

Their baseball stories are funny and well written.

godwulf
03-15-2009, 01:26 PM
Unless a ballplayer is just a natural writer, it's really very much in their best interest to invest in a co-writer, or even a ghost writer...and often painfully obvious when they haven't done so. Too many athletes and former athletes tend to think of a book as being a more or less disjointed and random collection of sports stories and observations, with every other paragraph ending with a "punch line" and an exclamation mark.

Okay, here's a question for you guys: What ballplayer(s) would you most like to see write a book about their career, who (as far as you know) hasn't done so yet?

2000mvpfan
03-15-2009, 03:34 PM
A great one for Yankee fans is Dynasty:The New York Yankees 1949-1964 by Peter Golenbock-great stories told by the hundreds of players he interviewed from that era (most were still alive as the book is from '75).

And 2 more real funny baseball books are Temporary Insanity and Over the Edge-both by notorious nutjob Jay Johnstone...good stuff.

Joe

metsbats
03-15-2009, 07:14 PM
In additon to Mets bats I have alot of Mets books

- Screwball Tug Mcgraw (autographed)
- Can anyone play this game? - Jimmy Breslin
- Bats - Davey Johnson
- If at First - Keith Hernandez
- Dream Season - Gary Carter
- Conquering Life's Curves Baseball battles and Beyond - Ed Hearn
- Things Happen for a Reason - Terry Leach
- Heat - Doc Gooden
- Darryl - Darryl Strawberry
- The Worst Team Money Could Buy The Collapse of the Ny Mets - Klapish/Harper
- Rookie - Dwight Gooden
- The Bad Guys Won - Jeff Pealman
- The New York Mets A Photographic History - George Kalinsky
- The Glory Days New York Baseball 1947-1957

- Smithsonian Baseball - Stephen Wong
- Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio - Maury Allen
- My Favorite Summer - Mickey Mantle, Phil Pepe (autographed)
- Letters to Mickey - friends and fans of Mickey Mantle
- The Duke of Flatbush - Duke Snider
- Nice Guys Finish First - Monte Irvin
- Get that Nigger Off the Field - Art Rust Jr. (autographed)
- IronMan The Cal Ripken Jr. Story - Harvey Rosenfeld

joelsabi
05-28-2009, 11:46 PM
i just read Miracle Ball. anyone read this book? It's about the search for "shot heard around the world" hr baseball.

cordovacollector
05-29-2009, 06:50 PM
Just read:

Wait 'Til Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Wonderful book on 1950s Dodgers.

ironmanfan
05-29-2009, 07:08 PM
In additon to Mets bats I have alot of Mets books

- Smithsonian Baseball - Stephen Wong
- Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio - Maury Allen
- My Favorite Summer - Mickey Mantle, Phil Pepe (autographed)
- Letters to Mickey - friends and fans of Mickey Mantle
- The Duke of Flatbush - Duke Snider
- Nice Guys Finish First - Monte Irvin
- Get that Nigger Off the Field - Art Rust Jr. (autographed)
- IronMan The Cal Ripken Jr. Story - Harvey Rosenfeld

I'm actually listed in the Acknowledgements in the front of that Ripken book :) ...I also have the cancelled check from the author that he used to pay Cal Ripken Sr. for the forward. As a total aside, even though Ripken Sr. wrote the Forward to this book, Cal Jr. will not sign it due to it being an unauthorized biography (truth be told, the author 'ghost wrote' wrote the forward himself and just got Sr.'s approval on it)

metsbats
05-29-2009, 07:22 PM
I'm actually listed in the Acknowledgements in the front of that Ripken book :) ...I also have the cancelled check from the author that he used to pay Cal Ripken Sr. for the forward. As a total aside, even though Ripken Sr. wrote the Forward to this book, Cal Jr. will not sign it due to it being an unauthorized biography (truth be told, the author 'ghost wrote' wrote the forward himself and just got Sr.'s approval on it)

Here's the reference in the books Acknowledgements:

'I have been continually updated on the media and Cal junior by his "biggest fan," Bill Haelig'


Very Nice!

bigtruck260
05-30-2009, 12:06 AM
Unless a ballplayer is just a natural writer, it's really very much in their best interest to invest in a co-writer, or even a ghost writer...and often painfully obvious when they haven't done so. Too many athletes and former athletes tend to think of a book as being a more or less disjointed and random collection of sports stories and observations, with every other paragraph ending with a "punch line" and an exclamation mark.

Okay, here's a question for you guys: What ballplayer(s) would you most like to see write a book about their career, who (as far as you know) hasn't done so yet?

Mark Grace, Dale Murphy and Ray Lankford

For those of you not in the STL area, Lankford was a notorious adulterer...even getting a woman pregnant on the 'East Side' during his comeback in 2004. At one point, the papers had an ex girlfriend doing doughnuts on his lawn and tossing a brick through his window.

Ray was also caught along side Orlando Pace patronizing a local brothel - pocketful of Viagra and everything.

Locallly, this would be an interesting story. He never once gave his own account of anything. It was always 'You got the wrong Ray'.

34swtns
05-30-2009, 12:37 AM
My "all-Bears" area contains 57 books, 490 game programs, 46 media guides, 26 yearbooks, all but a few of the weekly "Bear Report" publications from 1977 to the present, hundreds of sports magazines with Bears covers dating back to 1942 as well as hundreds of newspapers covering the Bears.

mvandor
05-30-2009, 11:09 AM
Excellent book by Tom Callahan: Johnny U - The Life & Times of John Unitas.

33bird
05-30-2009, 12:03 PM
I think I have 200+ books. Probably every book about the:
1970s Reds. (Big Red Machine).
1990s Bulls. (Dynasty Bulls).
1980s Celtics (Bird)
1960s Celtics (Bill Russell).
1940s Red Sox (Williams, Foxx, Grove).
The best 3 Pete Rose books, I think, are:
Hustle, Collision at home plate, and Pete Rose Baseballs Charlie Hustle.
If anybody needs any recommendations on any of these areas-drop me an email.

both-teams-played-hard
05-30-2009, 02:28 PM
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/5135/loose.jpghttp://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8083/loose2.jpg

CampWest
04-16-2012, 03:59 PM
Just finished:
Willie Mays Aikens Safe at Home, by Gregory Jordan

A very good read. I do not read for leisure very often and when I do, it is usually a long, drawn out process. But this book I read over parts of two days and enjoyed every second of it.

A couple others that come to mind that I really enjoyed,
Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms, by Elden Auker
The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, by Nicholis Dawidoff
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America, by Joe Posnanski
I Was Right on Time, by Buck O'Neil

frikativ54
04-16-2012, 04:10 PM
I love books, and I love baseball, but most of my books are about other subjects. So I don't really have a sports library.

DJaeger22
04-16-2012, 04:18 PM
Out of My League by Dirk Hayhurst is awesome. A very amusing read into minor and major league life. Overall a great book!

godwulf
04-16-2012, 05:16 PM
One of the best, and most moving books I've ever read, sports-related or otherwise:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1229446789l/6004392.jpg

It is the story of Mike Coolbaugh, struck in the back of the neck and killed by a foul ball while coaching First Base in the minors. It is far more than just the story of Mike's life in Baseball, or of his tragic death; it's the story of the young player who hit that foul ball, of his life and his career, and how the awful convergence of their paths affected everyone who knew and loved both men. It's a really amazing book, and I don't care how big and tough you think you are - there are going to be times that you'll have to put it down and have a cry.

frikativ54
04-16-2012, 06:23 PM
One of the best, and most moving books I've ever read, sports-related or otherwise:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1229446789l/6004392.jpg

It is the story of Mike Coolbaugh, struck in the back of the neck and killed by a foul ball while coaching First Base in the minors. It is far more than just the story of Mike's life in Baseball, or of his tragic death; it's the story of the young player who hit that foul ball, of his life and his career, and how the awful convergence of their paths affected everyone who knew and loved both men. It's a really amazing book, and I don't care how big and tough you think you are - there are going to be times that you'll have to put it down and have a cry.

Sounds like a great read. I'll have to pick it up one of these days. Thanks for sharing. :)

schubert1970
04-18-2012, 08:48 PM
I have the one about Wilt sticking to 10,000 women and the other is about that tennis player and her challenges with being gay.

Fnazxc0114
04-19-2012, 04:53 PM
Several first editions of Robert Ruark, and Peter Hathaway Capstick. Af first editions of Livingston, and HM Stanley. Tons of African hunting novels.

CampWest
04-19-2012, 05:35 PM
Just finished:
Willie Mays Aikens Safe at Home, by Gregory Jordan

A very good read. I do not read for leisure very often and when I do, it is usually a long, drawn out process. But this book I read over parts of two days and enjoyed every second of it.


If anybody in KC is interested, Willie Aikens is doing a series of book signings this weekend as well as a book discussion on Sunday. I hope to attend at least one of the events. If you are not in KC but are interested in a signed copy of his book, let me know and I'll see if I can take care of it for you. I can probably ask to have it personalized as well if you like. Not sure how many requests I will be able to accomodate though, if time is restricted or there is a big line.

email me at
wescampbell (at) everestkc (dot) net

GoTigers
04-19-2012, 08:03 PM
Is anyone here a book collector/expert? I inherited some first editions (i think) and would like to get an idea of value, if anyone could help.

earlywynnfan
04-19-2012, 08:29 PM
Is anyone here a book collector/expert? I inherited some first editions (i think) and would like to get an idea of value, if anyone could help.

I'd google r. plapinger.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com