Jason - Moneyball by Michael Lewis: Next, keeping with more modern times, I'll go with one of my favorite non-fiction authors of the past twenty years Michael Lewis, who along with Jon Krakauer knows how to create a great narrative, and his "Moneyball." Furthermore, I want to use the platform of this draft to reiterate the stance of Ken Tremendous and urge those that criticize the book to actually read it first. It may not be perfect, but it is enthralling to see the inner workings of a small market baseball team. Does everything work for the A's? No. Does everything work regarding player development for every team in baseball? Of course not. Should you keep trying new things, hoping to hit on an innovation to exploit? Of course.
Mark - Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress by Harry Katz, Frank Ceresi, Phil Michel, and Susan Reyburn: I'm really surprised that the other drafters haven't picked a memorabilia book yet. Reading is nice, but looking at pictures can be pleasant also. The quartet of authors have selected wonderful images and objects and presented them in a lush fashion. The Library of Congress has a deep treasure chest from which to draw. I would love to see what was left out. A very nice companion to either Stephen Wong's Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World's Finest Private Collections or Burt Sugar's Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America's Greatest Game. All three are great coffee table books, but you can read any of them without being a coffee drinker.
Jon - Baseball (1845-1881): From the Newspaper Accounts by Preston Orem: This has always been one of my favorite books and one I desired early on when I was building my library. During the 1950's, Orem went through old newspapers (this is before microfilm) and took notes from them and compiled them into a really nice history of early baseball. He published subsequent volumes in a spiral bound format which are very hard to find. I think it's a wonderful and overlooked history of the early days of baseball.
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Finally listened to the Schur/Posnanski podcast on a drive today (after a few episodes of The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Radiolab) and laughed at "Moneyball" being the first pick. Not because it wasn't a great pick, just because my reasoning for the pick sounded the same. I know between the two drafts, I have a lot of material to add to my reading list. Isn't that the point?
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