Can be biography, auto biography or just a sports book in general.
I will start
“Wherever I Wind Up” autobiography RA dickey(the d on my keyboard won’t do caps sorry)
Ty Cobb not the hit piece by the sportswriter but the more neutral and informative one
Baseball’s greatest Quotations
Carlisle vs Army. The game where Jim Thorpe met Eisenhower on the football field
Now I will get in trouble as I don’t remember the name of the book about the Houston Cougars that has somehow left my house and I can’t find a copy anywhere.
Going to really show my age here…the Chip Hilton books (more than 5) from the 50’s and an obscure baseball book from the same era, “Base Burglar”. The combination of sports and reading pretty much were my life growing up.
Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent is an awesome book. It’s about the Mighty Mites football team of the Masonic Home in Fort Worth who dominated in the 30s and 40s, winning a state title. It was the Texas freemason orphanage school. A really inspirational story and well written.
Other books:
Triumph by Jeremy Schaap - I’m a big Jesse Owens fan
Moneyball - I know the movie is solid, but great book
The Boys of Winter - great inside story on miracle on ice team
Born to Run - any runners have to read it, still good to check out for non runners
BTW years after this game which was in 1912. When
Eisenhower was a 5 star general, someone asked Thorpe if he knew Eisenhower. His reply was “Eisenhower, good linebacker.”
Timely thread as I was thinking the other day that pulling out some books I love would be a good way to spend this extra time. I can only watch so many BBC police shows on Netflix.
Anyway, I stacked up my favorite baseball books so I’ll list them.
A False Spring by Pat Jordan. He was a high school pitching phenom in the late 50s who went on to be one of the best sportswriters I’ve ever read (although he seems like a real jerk in life in his later years). This is his account of his days in the Milwaukee Braves chain circa 1959 when his arm (and potential career) went south. My favorite sports book, period. Very, very well written.
The Great American Novel by Phillip Roth. His only sports book and the only book of his that I’ve ever found readable. In it Roth chronicles the odyssey of the Ruppert Mundys, the only homeless franchise in the Patriot League. If you are not familiar with the Patriot League take heart, Word Smith, the book’s narrator, will explain the Communist plot and Capitalist scandals have conspired to wipe out it’s rich history. It’s enough to know that the Mundys have lost their stadium in Port Ruppert to the war effort (WWII) and have taken to the road more or less permanently. It’s unique and very much fun.
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover is the most unique book on my shelf. Coover’s book centers around J. Henry Waugh, an accountant who in his spare time, has built a fictitious baseball league the schedule of which he plays out using a dice based baseball game he devised. That’s a little like saying “Hoover Dam holds back water”… it doesn’t begin to describe the real treasure that this dark story is.
A Lefty’s Legacy by Jane Leavy. This is a bio of Sandy Koufax and among the best baseball bios I’ve ever read. She wrote books about Mickey Mantle (really good as well) and Babe Ruth (still awaiting on my shelf) but I’d recommend this Koufax book highly. He was an interesting but private guy but she really tells the story of one of the greatest pitchers I’ve ever seen.
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn is remarkably well written, nostalgic without being sappy, sentimental without being maudlin. It’s really three books in one: Kahn’s growing up in Brooklyn and relationship with his father, his career as a sportswriter during the team’s glory seasons and a look back at the colorful and talented players on those Brooklyn clubs. I’m not a Dodgers guy (Go Orioles!) but I lived in Brooklyn with my parents and grandparents when I was small and I have always been interested in all things Brooklyn. BTW… my father grew up about six blocks from Ebbets Field and only went there twice, both time to see his Yankees in World Series games. I’d ask him why and he always said “Why would I, they were not my team.”
