Baseball Book Blog

Baseball Prospectus continues to trail Joe Torre and while there are no new faces in the top, three new books have cracked the top ten in the bottom half.

1) The Yankee Years
2) Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season
3) Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit
4) Moneyball
5) Baseball America 2009 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects (Baseball America Prospect Handbook)
6) Champions: A Look Back at the Phillies Triumphant 2008 Season
7) The Dickson Baseball Dictionary
8) Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster 2009: Gravity Defying Edition
9) Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball’s Most Enigmatic Slugger
10) Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner,and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles

Of the three new books, I’ve picked up two.  The Dickson Baseball Dictionary is a very cool resource.  With over 10,000 entries, you have a definition for just about any baseball term you can think of.  This is what I call a “flipping book.”  I’ll flip to a random page, and read, and learn.  This is the third edition and it gets revised ever ten years so this will be a mainstay for quite some time.

I’m also about 50 pages into Forever Blue, which is a well written biography of Walter O’Malley.  I’ll be reviewing this probably in two weeks over at the Hardball Times.

I’ve stopped counting the times I’ve restarted this site but for the forseeable future, I have no more excuses, so here we go,

1) The Yankee Years
2) Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season
3) Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit
4) Baseball America 2009 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects (Baseball America Prospect Handbook)
5) Moneyball
6) Champions: A Look Back at the Phillies Triumphant 2008 Season
7) Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster 2009: Gravity Defying Edition
8) Bill James Handbook 2009
9) Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report
10) Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big

Alright, just a few quick comments.  First, I’m way behind in my baseball reading.  Of the newer books listed above, I’ve picked up Baseball Prospectus 2009 and the Bill James Handbook.  I’ve read Juiced and Moneyball.  I’m tightening my book buying budget but I have a couple of review copies coming in.  At least on review will show up at the Hardball Times, but the hope is to get things going here again.

Second, there’s very few new books between the last time I wrote in Jan. and now.  The order has changed but seven of the ten books were on that list or a previous list.  The biggest surprise is that Baseball Prospectus isn’t number one, because they usually rule the roost at this point in time.  Looks like everyone wants Joe Torre’s dirt on the Yankees.