Baseball Books

The ONLY negative I can see with this book is that it doesn't come in pocket size for you to use at games. Buy it and you'll agree!

This is a wonderful book. I use it to umpire little league, and it covers everything you need to know in good detail. Everyone who coaches or umpires should have this book and read it every year that they're involved with baseball.

I have the Official Baseball Rules (OBR) book and also use some online resources when trying to determine if my umpiring calls were correct (and what they should be in the future!). However, none of the other resources lay things out as clearly as this book does.

The reader is taken through a logical sequence of coverage that a typical umpire will encounter. It also is useful for coaches, players and spectators, but I find it most useful for umpiring and making calls on rules.

Each section lists the appropriate section of the OBR, so it is good to have OBR at your side as well. The reading is easy, well laid out and printed nicely.

This book was certainly worth the price.

Hi, I am biased because I am the author, but this is a hilarious book about baseball's all-time great characters from Casey to Yogi and everyone in between. There are so many great characters in baseball that this book had me laughing from beginning to end during compilation of this book. If you would like more information about this book or any of my books, contact me at glennliebman.com. Thank you for your time.

This is the funnest baseball book I have ever read! With quotes on every thing for fielding "First I pray to God that nobody hits a ball to me. Then I pry that nobody hits the ball to Steve Sax." Pedro Guerrero. To autograph signings "It was fun until a kid came up to me and said, 'my dad says you're getting old, you're going to die, and your autograph will be Valuable.'" Warren Spahn, on autograph shows. With all the funny quotes in this book you will have a stomach ache for days. Buy it now!

As a longtime baseball fan I felt that I had to comment on Mr. Liebman's tome. I have received countless hours of enjoyment from reading the quotes. I have also given the book as a gift to many baseball buddies of mine and they have been equally impressed. Well done Mr. Liebman - Casey salutes you!

After reading BASEBALL STRATEGIES and knowing it's available as a valuable reference, I'm looking forward to referring to it during the playoffs and World Series. BASEBALL STRATEGIES provides insight into the finer points of the game. It provides the rationale for the strategies used, and the decisions made regarding all of the individual match-ups in countless offensive situations that make baseball such a "complex simple game".

Besides baseball fans, the book is obviously written for coaches and players who want to develop their understanding of the game and improve their ability to react and anticipate in any given situation. Contributors to the book are successful college coaches who, as life-long students of the game, have brought their own experiences and perspectives to this well-written, informative book of offensive and defensive strategies and tactics. Pitching is also explained, from fielding the position to developing mental toughness to developing a plan for getting the batter out.

This book contains a wealth of information for "students of the game". If you play, coach, or just enjoy watching, BASEBALL STRATEGIES can provide valuable information for many seasons to come. There are so many pearls of wisdom, it should be guaranteed to improve the quality of play and understanding of everyone who reads it.

Tim Smith

Bought for my husband. Reports this is an excellent book for the strategy of the game.

I highly recommend this book to any coaches that want to take their game to the next level. The one thing that this book does is break down every aspect of the game and gives you many, many ideas on how to implement the strategies explained.

I have been coaching baseball for 7 years at the high school level and have attended many baseball coaches clinics throughout the United States. I have learned many things at these clinics.

The beauty of this book is that it something that you can continue to reference back to again and again. This book has definitely aided to my players development. From defensive strategies to times to use the run game, this game covers it all.

I have also loaned this book out to other coaches and they have enjoyed it also.

If you are looking to take your coaching to the next level, I highly recommend this book.

I bought this for a baseball fan who wants to go to all of the stadiums and it was a huge hit. It's amazing that they got so much info on one map. They have phone numbers and websites for pro and minor league stadiums. You can't beat this for the price!!

PRODUCT WAS AWESOME!!! THIS MAP WAS PERFECT!!! SHIPPING WAS SUPER SUPER FAST!!!!! WILL HOPEFULLY BUY FROM AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!!!

I bought this Map along with the Ultimate Baseball Road Trip series (major league and minor league) and all three products have been extremely helpful. The map is great for plotting driving distances and trip scheduling and the books are great for planning what to do, where to sit, and what to eat, once you get to the ballparks.

I agree with the first review...these books are 'priceless'! I, too, used to 'covet' the "Feats 'O Magic' Chemistry Set!! My 9 year old son is just getting into reading this series out loud to me; (he's homeschooled)...and I am enjoying the memories!

After reading the books in this series, you'll never forget the smell of wet sneakers, and you'll secretly run off and buy yourself a chemistry set in the hope of something magical happening. I loved these books as a kid.

Am I the only one who knows of these books? As a young boy (9 or 10) I read the whole series about witchcraft and baseball. Even inspired me to join little league. If you get the chance, get these books to read for yourself or your children!

Colbert does a marvelous job here at combining the various elements of baseball-related art. In this collection you will find some of the very best poems and fictional outtakes that have been written about the game. But the speakers are not limited to professional writers. There are player quotes, journalistic snippets, and even a famous comedic routine.

Finally, the art work is stunning and layed out in a way that accentuates both the visual and verbal aspects of the book. Highly recommended for the fan of literature or baseball that wants something that is both beautiful and meaningful.

What a wonderful Mother's Day gift for one who truly loves the game of baseball. This book is baseball and writing at its best....from Humphrey Bogart's saying...a hot dog at the ballpark is better than steak at the Ritz....to the marvelous photos and poems...to Ann Hood's MEMOIR..and her love for the game. As Robert Frost said...some baseball is the fate of all of us.....and for us lucky ones...more than some please!! Despite all its problems, baseball is a great game!!

I loved editing this book. With the writers mentioned in the Publishers Weekly review above, you can guess why. But you'll be even more amazed, as I was, by the vibrant art and design. Deborah Bull and Greg Wakabayashi have created something special. David Colbert

For anyone who loves baseball, food, wine, Italy, and music (not necessarily in that order), this is the book for you. Dave Bidini's experiences with the Peones are hilarious. Imagine the passion that Italians have about everything in life. Now imagine that passion when arguing with an umpire. Hot dogs in the dugout? Not in Italy. Italians know how to eat! Read this book...you won't be disappointed.

Baseball has been a popular sport in Italy ever since it was first introduced by American soldiers who liberated Italy from the fascist in World War II. Author Dave Didini (along with his wife and two small children) traveled to Nettuno, Italy (south of Rome on the Tyrrhenian coast) to seek out his favorite summer game in what has evolved into the "baseball capital" of Italy since 1944. The serie A team in Nettuno is the Indians -- but this is a team stuffed with talent imported from Latin America. So for six months Didini followed the fortunes of the Serie B Peones, solidly staffed with Nettunese locals. When he returned to America, he sat down and wrote up his experiences with Italian baseball and culture. The result is Baseballissimo: My Summer In The Italian Minor Leagues. A lively and informative account that is a "must read" for anyone with an interest in baseball, as well as the armchair traveler seeking a quite different perspective on living and life in contemporary Italy.

Baseballissimo is one of those books you probably won't find at the bookstore, mainly because they wouldn't know what section to put it in. I only found it because of amazon's amazing "recommended for you" feature. It put together the fact that I enjoy memoirs, baseball, and Italy, and found a book about all three.

Baseballissimo is by Dave Bidini, a Canadian author. A surprisingly high percentage of the offbeat and intriguing books that I come across are by Canadian authors. I don't know how it works exactly, or what the income tax rate must be in Canada to subsidize such a program, but apparently the government actually pays authors to write books. They paid Bidini to take his family (wife, toddler, and infant) to Nettuno, Italy for six months so he could follow the local baseball team, the Peones for a season, and write a book about it. He says his choice was between baseball in Italy or wrestling in Newfoundland. Doesn't sound like a tough choice to me.

Bidini sits in the dugout and sometimes warms up with the Peones, an amateur team in one of the several Italian leagues. He gets to know the players and gives them all nicknames. He finds out how baseball came to be so popular in Italy (American GIs introduced it during World War II). He and his family become temporary residents of the small town of Nettuno near Anzio and about an hour's drive south of Rome. Bidini gets in touch with his roots - his grandparents were immigrants to Canada from Italy. He reminisces about how baseball has always been a part of his life. And he follows the Peones from pre-season training to the exciting season finish against Palermo.

Sometimes you get the feeling that Bidini cares more about the game than the Peones do. They're a good team, but it's just amateur baseball, and they all have day jobs and girlfriends and lives. Bidini's pushing forty and the manager, although still fit and athletic, is in his sixties. The players, mostly in their twenties and in a country where soccer is king, are sometimes late for practice, or are more interested in the fantastic pre-game snacks they've brought. Since this is Italy, there are no hot dogs and sunflower seeds. It's homemade pizza, smooth espresso, and sugary pastries. Sure, the players want to win, and they go all out when they play. But to them it's just a game. Little do they know.

Frank Bosworth excels at not only being funny but managing to convey a thoughtful undercurrent. Most humorous writers provide laughs, then switch to serious mode for the "lesson" while Bosworth has the reader shifting between chuckling and howling from beginning to end, but still sends the reader away, pondering the size of the role chance plays in our lives.

Bosworth has a unique and delightful way of presenting the reader
with doses of the wit and wisdom of moments from
everyday life that we often miss while looking backwrd or forward or simply away; in so doing he touches our hearts, opens out eyes and sometimes makes us shed a long awaited tear inside a good hard laugh.!

Loved this entertainingly humorous story of personal success and failure where the author's fate is determined, as is the norm, not by his athletic capabilities, determination or personality, but by another's success or failure. We can all relate to this story as we all wait for our 15 minutes of fame!
Is a must read!!

This is very simple. If you collect baseball cards, you need ths book. It's just that easy!!!

THIS BOOK HELPED ME AND MY COLLECTOR FRIENDS SO MUCH , THAT I HAD TO GIVE IT TO ONE OF THEM WHO DOES NOT LIVE IN THE USA, AND THAT IS WHY I AM NOW BUYING MY SECI=OND COPY. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This book is an absolute necessity for baseball card collectors who are in search of specific players. The book alphabetically lists every player who has appeared on a baseball card. Not only does it list the major companies (like Topps), it does an excellent job of listing locally issued cards. It includes minor league cards as well. If you are looking for a specific player's cards, this is the best place to find every card produced of that player.
The only downside to this book is that it is fairly quickly outdated due to the glut of cards on the market. Back in the day, a great player like Hank Aaron might have 1 regular card and maybe 5-10 special or regional cards each year. Now, a player like Albert Pujols might have over 100 total each year.
That downside cannot be avoided, though. With that in mind, this book cannot do much more.

A hustler gets a free ride and makes it seem as if he's doing you a favor. - Bill Veeck

Hey, you can have your Babe Ruths and Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. Give me Bill Veeck. Veeck's the guy who introduced Bat Day, had the one and only midget pinch-hitter in the history of baseball, put players' names on the back of uniforms, had the first exploding scoreboard and signed the first African-American to play in the American League - Larry Doby. Oh, yeah, and he planted the ivy around the outfield fences at Wrigley Field.
The Hustler's Handbook was written in 1965 with sportswriter Ed Linn. Somehow or other I got the feeling it was written to help pay off a creditor or two. Don't know where I got that idea, but I'll stick with it for now. The book is a product of the time and often deals with what were then current issues - the behind-the-scene story of the '64 World Series, the purchase of the New York Yankees by CBS, a couple of then fresh chapters on baseball executives Horace Stoneman and Branch Rickey. All things considered, we can forgive him his chapter on the cute widdle Metsies. I've been sick of the stories about these "lovable losers" since before Roger Clemens was born, but Veeck doesn't let too much treacle ruin his observations.
This volume of Veeck's observations on the state of the game is a flat out delight. Veeck's observations are pungent and direct.
This is what he had to say about Yogi Berra: "Yogi is a completely manufactured product. He is a case study of this country's unlimited ability to gull itself and be gulled.... It pleased the public to think that this odd-looking little man with the great natural ability had a knack for mouthing humorous truth with the sort of primitive peasant wisdom we rather expect from our sports heroes."
On Leo Durocher and racism: "Leo himself is without any racial consciousness - or even unconsciousness. Leo looks on each human being with the purest of motives; i.e., what can this guy do to make Leo Durocher's passage through life easier, more fun and more profitable?"
Veeck has another chapter on the minor leagues in which he heaps praise on the glorious Mike Kelly, owner of the St. Paul team in the American Association who Veeck credits with delivering "a priceless education in operations, trading, larceny and such other of the applied sciences as came to his nimble mind."
Veeck has a sharp eye and a soft place in his heart for the sharper and the con man. The only character in this book who Veeck treats with anything approaching harshness is Branch Rickey, who Veeck apparently felt was a little too much the pious charlatan for his tastes.
It's a shame that as I write this (June 2004) The Hustler's Handbook is out of print. If I was building a sports library this one would be on the first shelf.
The Fireside Edition was published in 1989, and contains an epilogue (which, oddly enough, is subtitled "Moneyball") written sometime before Veeck's death in 1986. If you think Veeck is a dinosaur, passe and irrelevant to today, consider this from the Epilogue:
"There is... one source of talent that has never been tapped: the female of the species. In 1980, I had a promotion worked out, secretly, with Coca-Cola to conduct a national hunt for the best of the female players, with the winners to be placed in the minor leagues and brought along like anybody else. It was not a stunt. Although the female of the species lacks the upper-body strength to stand much of a chance in the competition for the power positions, young women are more than competitive when it comes to dexterity and agility. If everything had gone according to plan, we would have had a female playing second base in Chicago within three years and, unless I was off the mark, a pitcher with style and control within five."
The Hustler's Handbook will delight baseball fans with a knowledge of the history of the game.

Veeck, famous for such promotions as the pinch-hitting midget and the exploding scoreboard, reveals the methods to his maddness and the subtle brilliance behind every move he made in baseball. This book is essential reading for anyone involved promotions or marketing. It's also loads of fun for baseball fans or anyone who just wants to laugh.

This out-of-print work treats us to the great combination of Bill Veeck's insight and sense of humour as rendered by Ed Linn (recently passed on... rest in peace, and thanks for all the great reading), one of the best authors any baseball figure ever wrote a book 'with'. It is dated about 1966, before the era of free agency, baseball strikes, and Veeck's second stint as owner of the White Sox. It doesn't really live up to the title, it wanders a bit, and at the end it leaves one wondering whether Veeck had a message to convey (beyond, of course, the standard refrain that baseball owners generally shouldn't be trusted any further than one can throw a slider underwater).

The above doesn't detract from my strong recommendation, because even as a dozen-odd independent chapters that relate only marginally to one another, it's still wonderful stuff. Old stories about almost-forgotten figures, commentaries on various owners' catfights, and plenty of gaffs at Ford Frick. One of the most interesting parts is the chapter devoted to the interpretation of the long-mislaid notes of Harry Grabiner. (Who cares?, you might ask? Ever hear of the Black Sox scandal? Well, Harry was in the Chisox front office when that happened. A lot of people should be glad these notes weren't published until 45 years after the fact, and Veeck's commentary on them is most incisive.)

A definite search candidate, and if you dig in it enough, contains a lot of insight into the operation of a ballclub.