Baseball Books

This is where it all began for one of baseballs teams going from worst to first.All the behind the scene photos,as well of information of that first season.A must read for the serious Rockies fan.

All devoted Colorado baseball fans should purchase this book and pass it down to future generations of Rockies fans. Looking through this book brings back all the wonderful memories from that magical first season of Major League Baseball in Colorado.

This book is the best baseball book!! It helped me be a better catcer, and in general a better player over all. I highly recomend this book to ANYONE who has even the slightest intrest in playing baseball. So if anyone out there thinking about buying this book... Stop trying to decide and do it!! you won't be sorry

I read this whole book in one day and I really learned a lot from it. I wanted to become better at pitching and batting and this book has helped me to achieve this. I have seen a significant improvement in the way I play the game. It is a must for any serious baseball player.

"Conscience of the Game: Baseball's Commissioners from Landis to Selig" is that rare treasure of a sports book that takes the reader on a compelling historical journey through time, while simultaneously posing thought-provoking questions concerning the future.

The volume illustrates the different ways in which each person holding that office has approached his mandate to advance and protect the best interests of the national pastime...and the challenges that the Commissioner of Baseball faces today and into the future.

For those who love the game of baseball, enjoy its history and care about its future, this book offers a wonderful, thought-provoking read.

As its title and subtitle suggest, this book is a history of baseball's office of the commissioner, and contains many fascinating details (both familiar and little-known). Yet it's more than that: It's a meditation on the social and personal factors involved in the challenging effort to preserve a professional sport's moral compass.
Best of all, Mr. Moffi writes with an elegant informality on behalf of us long-suffering yet ever loyal fans. Reading "Conscience of the Game" is like drinking a beer and talking baseball into the wee hours with a thoughtful, humorous, and impassioned friend.
Also highly recommended: two of Mr. Moffi's other books ("Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959" and "This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s"), as well as his volumes of poetry ("A Citizen's Handbook" and "A Simple Progession").

I have followed baseball for nearly 50 years and still learned some things about the game. All the basics are covered and she makes it such fun to read!

Finally a sports reference book written for a woman's sense of humor! A must read for all "cool chicks" that want to more out of baseball games than just bad hotdogs!

Just an amazing, soothing, great summer read. A brilliant plot, and suspenseful until the last few pages. The book moves slowly, and peacefully at first, like the summer itself, and then, like a funnel, sucks you in. Powerful and brilliant.

MH Levine is one of the finest, most original voices in American literature today, as he once again proves with characteristic flair and scathing elan in his latest work, The Cooperstown Murders. Destined for legend or infamy, this author and his work should not be missed.

Mark Cryan is to books about baseball in North Carolina as Josh Hamilton is to home run derbies in New York.

Any baseball fan planning a summer trip through North Carolina would do well to bring this book along. The author spent a decade and a half working in baseball all over the state - in the Carolina League, the Coastal Plain League, and the Appalachian League.
The book recounts North Carolina's rich baseball history, offers detailed descriptions of her grand old (and new) ballparks, and even provides information food and lodging.

I got this book shortly after it came out in 1991 and have enjoyed through numerous re-readings since. It covers the Yankees from the time George Steinbrenner bought the team in the early '70s to 1990, when Steinbrenner was banned "for life," by which time he had made the franchise a laughingstock. Moss Klein and Bill Madden were two of the many beat writers to cover the Yankees during that time and tell some neat stories from the inside. The book has a chapter on each manager under Steinbrenner (the Billy Martin, chapter is, of course, the most interesting), and also writes about the stars of the Yankees, as well as some of the lesser-known players who still made things interesting. Klein and Madden not only tell of some of the famous (and not-so-famous) stories of the team, but also tell some from the point of view of the writers, showing how out-of-the-ordinary it was to cover this particular team. Non-Yankee fans will probably enjoy reading how this proud franchise was reduced (however briefly) to a second-divison club, while Yankee fans can relive a lot of the interesting stories and, looking back, can breath a sigh of relief that a meddlesome owner has seen the error of his ways and has let the people he hired just do their job and bring the team newfound success.

I got this book shortly after it came out in 1991 and have enjoyed through numerous re-readings since. It covers the Yankees from the time George Steinbrenner bought the team in the early '70s to 1990, when Steinbrenner was banned "for life," by which time he had made the franchise a laughingstock. Moss Klein and Bill Madden were two of the many beat writers to cover the Yankees during that time and tell some neat stories from the inside. The book has a chapter on each manager under Steinbrenner (the Billy Martin, chapter is, of course, the most interesting), and also writes about the stars of the Yankees, as well as some of the lesser-known players who still made things interesting. Klein and Madden not only tell of some of the famous (and not-so-famous) stories of the team, but also tell some from the point of view of the writers, showing how out-of-the-ordinary it was to cover this particular team. Non-Yankee fans will probably enjoy reading how this proud franchise was reduced (however briefly) to a second-divison club, while Yankee fans can relive a lot of the interesting stories and, looking back, can breath a sigh of relief that a meddlesome owner has seen the error of his ways and has let the people he hired just do their job and bring the team newfound success.

Two books with similar titles came out within weeks of each other. Which one should you buy?

The books are:

DAY BY DAY WITH THE BOSTON RED SOX by Bill Nowlin

RED SOX JOURNAL by John Synder. Snyder's book is subtitled "Year by Year & Day by Day with the Boston Red Sox Since 1901."

Nowlin's book looks like the better one to me, but anyone who can afford both should buy both as they complement each other well. Both books try to look at interesting things that happened on given dates in Red Sox history.

If you want to look up a given year, say 1958, Snyder's book is better because it's organized by year. If you want to look up a given date and see everything that happened on that particular date, Nowlin's book works better because it's organized by the day of the year.

Nowlin's book costs $17.95. Snyder's book costs almost twice as much, a full $12 more: $29.95. Snyder's book has 92 more pages, but the pages aren't as densely packed with information. At first glance, the two books seem to have about the same amount of information.

The Nowlin book is easier to handle, given its size and shape. The Snyder book is a little unwieldy.

Both books offer incredible, almost unprecedented amount of detail. Snyder's book sprinkles a dozen or so photographs throughout. It's going to take weeks to read through the two books for content, but there's one troubling gaffe right on the back cover of the Snyder book. His publisher cites the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $125,000 on January 5, 1920. The sale actually occurred in 1919 on December 26, and the price was an even $100,000.

The amount of work that went into these books is staggering. It's too bad they both came out at practically the same time. Both books merit five stars.

Bill Nowlin has created something very special here: surely the most complete day to day history of the Boston Red Sox ever written. The book was inspired by the comprehensive 1978 compendium This Date in Boston Red Sox History,authored by my friend and mentor, the late Ed Walton. Nowlin's book may be the greatest literary tribute one could pay to Ed.
In order to write a book such as Day by Day, you have to have two characteristics:
- an abiding, all-consuming love of the Boston Red Sox
- an almost obsessive need to document, with painstaking accuracy, every aspect of their history
Nowlin possesses both of these "qualities" in spades. He is obviously a tireless researcher, yet he manages to bring a sense of humor to what could be a very dry and lifeless project. Day by Day brings Red Sox history alive in a very unique way. Turn to any date - your birthday perhaps - and you will doubtless discover something interesting, if not fascinating.
I can't imagine a Red Sox fan not having this book in her or his library. It is definitive.
Teddy Ballgame

Unless you are a Red Sox fan, you may not know about the Curse of the Bambino. In the early part of the 20th century, the Boston Red Sox dominated the American League. One of their best players was a pitcher named Babe Ruth. The owner traded the Babe to the New York Yankees in exchange for the money to invest in the Broadway production of No No, Nanette and it's been no cigar for the Red Sox ever since.

Jonathan Schwartz has one of the worst cases of Red Sox addiction that I have ever heard of. He has been a radio announcer in New York for over 30 years (that's enemy territory for Red Sox fans). To stay up with his beloved Red Sox, he spent almost $15,000 in long distance charges from 1970-77 to listen in to the air check for WITS in Hartford of the games (calling in from Paris in some cases).

This is a story first published in Sports Illustrated in 1978 and covers one of the worst periods in Red Sox history: The season when they blew a late 14 game lead to the dreaded Yankees. I lived in Boston at that time, and it was painful to recall the swoon. Yet at the end of the season, they pulled a comeback and tied the Yankees. There was to be a one-game playoff in Fenway Park (determined by a coin toss) on October 2, 1978. In a prior playoff against Cleveland in Fenway in 1948 (also on October 2), the Sox had lost 8-3.

During the slide, the worst time had been when the Red Sox lost four in a row in Fenway to the Yankees with less than a month to go. Schwartz recounts his reaction. In a funk, he impulsively walked out of his apartment with $50 and a credit card, and flew to California. Only after arriving did he remember to call his live-in girlfriend and tell her what he had done.

With the big game coming up, Schwartz thinks he should take it easy and watch the game on television. At the last minute, he cannot resist and calls in some markers to get a press pass.

Most of the book recounts the game. It is interspaced with pre and post game comments from the key players.

The ironies continue to abound. You'll have to read the book to get them all. The Sox took a 2-0 early lead, but the faithful were fearful. Bucky Dent, the light-hitting shortstop, fouled a ball off his leg and play was stopped temporarily while he was treated. On the mound, the delay cost Torres (the Red Sox pitcher and former Yankee) his concentration. You guessed it. Dent hit a home run. Gossage replaced Guidry later on and stops the Red Sox from rallying back.

The final score: New York 5, Boston 4 (or as Schwartz puts it "Destiny 5, Boston 4).

Required reading and rereading for all Red Sox fans until the Curse of the Bambino is lifted!

Overcome your disbelief that anyone team could have so much bad luck with so much talent by reading this engaging story of baseball tragedy!

Jonathan Schwartz captures the sweet sadness of being a lifelong Red Sox fan (at least until 2004).

"Day By Day In Cincinnati Reds History" is chock-full of more statistics and trivial facts than you can shake a stick (of the Hillerich-Bradsby variety) at!

The book, published in 1983, covers a period dating from the club's beginning in the late 1800s through the 1982 season. Tons of interesting pieces of info are in store for Reds' fans inside this 336-page paperback volume. Many black-and-white photographs of Reds' greats also are spread throughout the book.

Chapter One (entitled "This Date In Cincinnati Reds History") reveals Reds' team and individual highlights, arranged chronologically by calendar date, month-by-month, with all 12 months of the year included. If something of a fairly big nature happened on a certain date, you're likely to find it lurking within these pages. Even a few smaller (more "average") Reds' accomplishments are covered here, such as the entry for May 20, 1969. Anybody know what happened that day in Reds' history? Well, pitcher Tony Cloninger spun a two-hit shutout vs. Philadelphia in a 4-0 Reds' victory. Not Earth-shaking news I suppose, but it's in the book nonetheless. :)

Cloninger, you might recall, is probably best known for setting an almost unbelievable record -- becoming the only pitcher to ever hit TWO grand-slam home runs in a single big-league game! It wasn't as a Red, however. He hit the slams while in a Braves' uniform, on July 3, 1966, in a 17-3 romp for the Braves against the Giants at Candlestick Park. Tony launched five total HRs that year, while driving in 23 runs (an amazing total of ribbies for a hurler)!

A "Chronological Index" in the back, arranged alphabetically by Reds' player's last names, is a nice cross-referencing tool to use in conjunction with Chapter 1.

Let's say you had a burning and uncontrollable desire to know what happened in Reds' history (of a fairly major nature, that is) on January 8th. No problem -- you'd simply find the "January 8" area of the book, and if a major occurrence took place on that date revolving around the Redlegs' club, you'll find it listed there (next to the appropriate year within the "Jan. 8" area).

A good "January 8" example -- in fact the ONLY event listed for that calendar date (which makes some sense, since January is the off-season for baseball) -- is a fact about former Reds' first baseman-outfielder Larry Biittner. I'll bet not many people know, even amongst baseball fans, that Biittner was the very first "re-entry draft free agent" ever signed by the Cincinnati Reds. And Biittner officially signed his contract with the Reds on January 8, 1981. You'll find that data in this volume. And heaps of other little-known facts about the team and its players as well.

It's fun to just start leafing through these pages and stop on any date to see what transpired on that date in Cincy history. E.G.: On August 12, 1966, Reds' outfielder Art Shamsky hit three home runs at Crosley Field vs. Pittsburgh. This particular hunk of Reds' trivia isn't exactly of a history-making nature, I guess (since many players have hit 3 four-ply wallops in a single contest). It's not overly remarkable until you read on -- and discover that Shamsky did not enter that game until the EIGHTH INNING! And each of his 3 homers either tied the game or put the Reds out in front! The game lasted 12 innings, with the Pirates outlasting Cincy, 14-11. We also learn in the book that two days later Shamsky tied a big-league record by swatting yet another long ball, making it 4 HRs in 4 straight at-bats! Like on August 12, Shamsky didn't enter that August 14th game until late in the contest, and his homer, once more, erased a Pirates lead. But the Reds lost that game too.

Other Chapter-One tidbits that I found very interesting (and perhaps you shall as well)....................

>> On May 30, 1883, the Reds played games in two different cities on the very same day. In the morning, the team played a contest in New York; then travelled to Philadelphia for an afternoon game, completing a unique doubleheader.

>> On July 27, 1930, Reds' pitcher Ken Ash threw only one pitch in a game vs. Chicago, which resulted in a triple play, and wound up the winning pitcher in the game.

>> Pete Rose, certainly NOT known as a long-ball threat, clubbed THREE home runs in a game at Shea Stadium in New York on April 29, 1978!

>> Babe Ruth hit 2 homers against the Reds in a Reds/Yankees exhibition game at "Redland Field" on July 25, 1921.

>> August 21, 1894 was a BAD day for the Reds. Cincy hurlers permitted (*gulp*) 43 runs (!) in a doubleheader at Boston. Cincinnati lost 18-3 and 25-8 that day. What added insult to injury that day was that the Boston club scored its 43 runs in just 14 total innings at bat! The 2nd game went on so long, it was called due to darkness. (Whoever pitched those games must NOT have been related to Tom Seaver.) :)

The above is just a sampling of the type of intriguing stuff that can be located in this fascinating book.

And there's more to this publication than just the "Day-By-Day" section (as the cover might suggest). In addition, there are sections on Reds' leaders in just about every statistical category you can imagine.

Other cool fun facts you can investigate in this book include ..............

> Data on EVERY single post-season game the Reds ever played in.

> A list of every Grand-Slam home run ever hit by a Reds' player (since 1901), including date hit, pitcher that served it up, and inning in which it was struck.

> Reds' All-Star Game participants, year-by-year.

> Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak is chronicled, game-to-game.

> List of all "Opening Day" results.

This is really a fun book to browse through. Well-constructed and easy to follow. A seemingly never-ending resource for Reds' stats and trivia.

For serious (or even casual) Cincinnati Reds' baseball fans, this book is a must. There are a few misspellings of players' names throughout the book, which is a bit annoying. But these errors are minor, and certainly not a reason to avoid this publication.

And, btw, always keep this important fact in mind, Redlegs' fans --- On July 2, 1961, Reds' first sacker Gordy Coleman stroked eight base hits in a doubleheader at Milwaukee vs. the Braves! Hey, you don't believe me? Look it up! It's right here! *wink* / *smile*

This book gives you a great history about the Cincinnati Reds. It gives you great stats and commentary on all the Reds greats. If you are a Cincinnati Reds fan, this is the ultimate book to have.