These are on papa's shelves:

 

Voices of Summer, Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers, Curt Smith

Red Smith on Baseball, Red Smith

Negro League Baseball, Ernest C. Withers

Baseball, An Illustrated History, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

The Glory of Their Times, Lawrence Ritter

The DiMaggio Albums, Richard Whittingham

Where They Ain't, The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, The Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball, Burt Solomon

Donald Honig is a great baseball writer as well.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

 

Very, very good book!

Chicken Soup for the Soul, Baseball Edition. Numerous short stories

I read "The Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn last year. I loved it. First half deals with his impressions of the team when he was a beat writer for the Dodgers in the 50s. The second half is some 20 years later and he travels across the country to do interviews with all the former players. It was really good and extremely informative about what ballplayers did after playing enough to become legends then just go back to where they came from, some to very hard lives after baseball.

 

I also love George Will's "Men at Work." He has an aesthetic appreciation for the game that I love and writing ability to speak eloquently about exactly what it is he loves about the game.

 

And if you want a really interesting perspective on the game, pick up some of Stephen Jay Gould's writings. Throughout his career, the man who made his name primarily by writing about evolutionary biology used baseball as an example of how systems evolve. I love his explanation of how some records are unbreakable because gameplay has so greatly improved, that is to say, top to bottom things are reaching an equilibrium. The league batting average has been somewhere around .260 throughout the last several decades. What's changing is that the very top averages have declined and the very bottom have gotten better. It's a fascinating way to look at baseball.

Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong by The Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts and Jonah Keri

 

Loved that book. It was my first foray into advanced metrics and I haven't looked back since.

Thanks guys. I'm going to definitely check into a lot of these suggestions. I just started reading Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid to Win the World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball League by Sam Walker today.

Finished Moneyball yesterday and really enjoyed it.

Thanks guys. I'm going to definitely check into a lot of these suggestions. I just started reading Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid to Win the World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball League by Sam Walker today.

I'd highly recommend this to any baseball fan and especially those who play fantasy baseball.

Finished Moneyball yesterday and really enjoyed it.

 

I thought it was pretty good as well, but all that math missed me a lot of times. I guess I'm cut more from the old-school scout cloth.

I re-read "Ball Four" last summer, and happened across his follow-up -- "Glad You Didn't Take It Personally" for a buck while flea marketing (found some amazing rock'n'roll and hip-hop promo posters for a steal!) and plan to dive into that in a couple days.

I am currently reading "56*" by Kostya Kennedy about the year Joe D had his hit streak.

 

I am waiting on Jimmy Breslin's "Branch Rickey" to come to my library.

I re-read "Ball Four" last summer, and happened across his follow-up -- "Glad You Didn't Take It Personally" for a buck while flea marketing (found some amazing rock'n'roll and hip-hop promo posters for a steal!) and plan to dive into that in a couple days.

Ball Four is sitting by my bed. I have a couple of non-baseball books to get through before it, but it will be next on my list.

Here's one that has not been mentioned and it's AWESOME: "It's Anybody's Ballgame" by Joe Garagiola. It covers everything from his childhood friendship with Yogi Berra to hosting the Today Show to President Ford's reelection campaign. I have read it three times and i think it is time for number four.