* A mile a minute? No, a book a day.

May 1, 2009

As he did last year, Tom Hoffarth took on the arduous challenge of providing his readers of the Los Angeles Daily News with a baseball book review a day. The result is an excellent look at some of the top books on the game, as well as some that might have fallen under the radar. My only quibble with his selections: it’s very Dodgercentric.

Each entry includes “The book,” “The author,” “How to find it,” “Where we’d go looking for it,” “The scoop,” and “How it goes down in the scorebook.”

Here’s the complete list, respectfully “lifted” from his blog. (Hey, why reinvent the wheel, right?)

Day 30: Parables From The Diamond: Meditations for Men on Baseball & Life by Phil Christopher and Glenn Dromgoole (linked here)

Day 29: Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself by Michael Shapiro (linked here)

Day 28: Straw: Finding My Way by Darryl Strawberry (with John Strausbaugh) (linked here)

Day 27: After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball by Robert E. Murphy (linked here)

Day 26: Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America by S.L. Price (linked here)

Day 25: “George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire” by Peter Golenbock (linked here)

Day 24: The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching and Life on the Mound by Ron Darling (linked here)

Day 23: “Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee” by Allen Barra (linked here)

Day 22: It Was Never About the Babe: How the Boston Red Sox Overcame Decades of Mismanagement and Racism and Built a Dynasty by Jerry M. Gutlon (linked here)

Day 21: Tony LaRussa: Man on a Mission by Bob Rains, forward by Joe Buck (linked here)

Day 20: The Rocket That Fell To Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality by Jeff Pearlman (along with American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime By Teri Thompson, Nathaniel Vinton, Michael O’Keeffe, and Christian Red of the New York Daily News) (linked here)

Day 19: The Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette, Conventional Wisdom and Axiomatic Codes of Our National Pasttime by Paul Dickson (as well as Dickson’s updated and third edition of The Dickson Baseball Dictionary: The Revised, Expanded and Now-Definitive Work on the Language of Baseball) (linked here)

Day 18: Baseball Prospectus: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season edited by Steven Goldman, Nate Silver and Christina Kahrl, forward by Keith Olbermann (linked here)

Day 17: Baseball and the Baby Boomer: A History, Commentary and Memoir by Talmage Boston (linked here)

Day 16: “Catcher: How The Man behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero” by Peter Morris (linked here)

Day 15: This Day In Baseball: A Day-By-Day Record of the Events that Shaped the Game by David Nemec and Scott Flatow and Dodgers Journal: Year by Year & Day by Day with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers since 1884 by John Snyder (linked here)

Day 14: The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players by Howard Megdal (linked here)

Day 13: Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit by Matt McCarthy (linked here)

Day 12: 100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Jon Weisman (linked here)

Day 11: Bob Feller’s Little Blue Book of Baseball Wisdom by Bob Feller (linked here)

Day 10: Splinters by Rex Hudler (linked here)

Day 9: The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie by Ira Berkow (linked here)

Day 8: As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires by Bruce Weber (linked here)

Day 7: Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic by Alyssa Milano and Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees by Jane Heller (linked here)

Day 6: Dodgers Past & Present by Steven Travers (linked here)

Day 5: The Psycho 100: Baseball’s Most Outrageous Moments by Steve “Psycho” Lyons (linked here)

Day 4: Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball’s Most Enigmatic Slugger by Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg (authorized by Manny Raminez) (linked here)

Day 3: The Yankee Years by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (linked here)

Day 2: Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles by Michael D’Antonio (linked here)

Day 1: Under The March Sun: The Story of Spring Training by Charles Fountain (linked here)

And here’s a bonus entry.

In an email to the Bookshelf, Hoffarth admitted he did not actually read every book (“I wish,” were his exact words). He did offer his tops picks, however:

1. “Heart of the Game” by SL Price was a surprise and a treat … one that I recommend reading cover to cover and then rereading to catch nuances in the writing style.
2. “The Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette, Conventional Wisdom and Axiomatic Codes of Our National Pasttime” by Paul Dickson — written in a rule-book style that’s very clever.
3. “The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players” by Howard Megdal — reading about “the tribe” was never so much fun… especially as he tries to make cases for some just being Jewish enough to qualify.
4. “100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die” by Jon Weisman — You’d think this was kind of a trite angle but he really did a lot of great research and wasn’t afraid to be critical of the team when it was needed. … a lot of myths busted and a lot of small things revealed that most don’t know about.
5. “Splinters” by Rex Hudler — would be great if it was an audio book … you have to know Hudman to appreciate his approach to the game and never-ending enthusiasm.

I’m already looking forward to next year to see Hoffarth’s new list.

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