Saturday, April 30, 2011

Baseball Book Draft - Round 2

Jon - The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg: Too soon for a fiction pick? I don't think so. Sticking with the Deadball Era New York Giants, this novel about a devout fan of Christy Mathewson's really captures the sense of Matty's popularity and the role of baseball and baseball players during that time. I loved it and it is another book that I should think about re-reading soon.

Mark - A Donald Honig Reader by Donald Honig: This is a bit of a cheat, because it is more than two books in one. A Donald Honig Reader is actually a collection of two of his books (Baseball When the Grass Was Real and Baseball Between the Lines) and excerpts from two others (The October Heroes and The Man in the Dugout). From memory I couldn't differentiate the collection of the two books so they merge somewhere in the middle.

This selection is very similar to Jason's first round pick of the Ritter book. Interviews with players. When Bob Feller passed away at the end of last year I pulled the Reader from the bookshelf and reread his entry.

Complex baseball from a simpler time.

Jason - The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn: I picked The Boys of Summer because, like The Glory of Their Times it is a book capturing former players through interviews. It's been a while since I've read it, but thinking of Billy Cox in a Pennsylvania bar, makes it feel like I read it yesterday.

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