Saturday, December 31, 2011

Baseball Book Club - Deciding the first book

It looks like we have some interest in having an online baseball book club so let's get under way and pick our first book. If you're interested in taking part, please leave 1-3 books that appeal to you RIGHT NOW in the comments. Feel free to make a case for them if you'd like. If someone suggests one that appeals to you, say so. I'd like to avoid setting up a poll and taking up more time but if need be, we will. It would be nice to just find a book that a lot of us want to read and we can try and get it and get reading.

I'd like the book to be easy to acquire, published or reprinted relatively recently (say in the 2000's) and have at least some mass appeal. All three criteria aren't completely necessary, especially since we have some serious baseball fans taking part, but they're nice to consider.

The three books that strike me as good candidates are:

Mike Sowell's The Pitch That Killed. I had initially eliminated this from consideration as I thought it would be difficult to get. Turns out it has been reprinted and might be easily attainable for purchase or libraries. It's about the Carl Mays - Ray Chapman incident and the 1920 season. 1989 Casey Award winner.

Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball. The 2007 Casey Award winner. I know we have fans of Posnanski and fans of Negro League baseball who read this site so this biography of Buck O'Neil seems like a good contender.

Jonah Keri's The Extra 2%. Sort of the Moneyball of the New Era. Looks at the 2008 Tampa Rays and how they have used experience in the financial markets to run the Rays.

We'll see how things look around Tuesday and go from there. Look forward to seeing what other folks want to read.