A 30-in-30 review

May 4, 2015

(As opposed to ESPN’s 30 for 30 series).

Once again, Tom Hoffarth of the LA Daily News has done a great service to the baseball reading community with his annual 30-books-in-30-days series on his “Farther off the Wall” blog. I advise going deep into each piece because Hoffarth offers interesting links among his DVD-type “extras.” Did I say extras? This would be considered the special bonus edition.

The only knock — and this is obviously an East Coast bias — is that he leans heavy on Dodgers/California-based books.

Here’s the rundown:

Day 1: Tommy Lasorda: My Way
Day 2: Out At Home: The True Story of Glenn Burke, Baseball’s First Openly Gay Player
Day 3: Perfect: The Rise and Fall of John Paciorek, Baseball’s Greatest One-Game Wonder
Day 4: The Joy of Ballpark Food: From Hot Dogs to Haute Cusine
Day 5: 101 Baseball Places To See Before You Strike Out: Second Edition
Day 6: 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball
Day 7: The Matheny Manifesto: A Young Manager’s Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life
Day 8: Bats, Balls, and Hollywood Stars: Hollywood’s Love Affair with Baseball, by Joe Siegman
Day 9: A Game of Their Own: Voices of Contemporary Women in Baseball,by Jennifer Ring
Day 10: The Hidden Game of Baseball: A New Edition of the Baseball Classic that Ignited the Sabermetric Revolution, by John Thorn and Pete Palmer
Day 11: Knuckleball: The History of the Unhittable Pitch, by Lew Freedman
Day 12: Picker’s Pocket Guide – Baseball Memorabilia: How to Pick Antiques Like a Pro, by Jeff Figler
Day 13: Joe Black: More Than a Dodger, by Martha Jo Black and Chuck Schoffner
Day 14: Gil Hodges: A Hall of Fame Life, by Mort Zachter
Day 15: I Am Jackie Robinson, from the series “Ordinary People Change the World by Brad Meltzer
Day 16: Throw Like A Woman , by Susan Petrone
Day 17: The Game Must Go On: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the Great Days of Baseball on the Home Front in WWII, by John Klima
Day 18: In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball, by Mark Armour and Daniel Levitt
Day 19: Tony Gwynn: He Left His Heart in San Diego, by Rich Wolfe
Day 20: A History of Baseball in 100 Objects: A Tour through the Bats, Balls, Uniforms, Awards, Documents and Other Artifacts that Tell the Story of the National Pastime, by Josh Leventhal
Day 21: Mystery Ball ’58: A Season-Long Whodunit, by Jeff Polman
Day 22: Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer, by Robert K. Fitts
Day 23: Handy Andy: The Andy Pafko Story, by Joe Niese
Day 24: Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary, by Robert F. Burk
Day 25: I Don’t Care if We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever, by Ben Blatt and Eric Brewster
Day 26: The Pine Tar Game: The Kansas City Royals, the New York Yankees, and Baseball’s Most Absurd and Entertaining Controversy, by Filip Bondy
Day 27: Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius, by Bill Pennington
Day 28: Seeing Home: The Ed Lucas Story: A Blind Broadcaster’s Story of Overcoming Life’s Greatest Obstacles, by Ed Lucas with Christopher Lucas
Day 29: A Scout’s Report: My 70 Years in Baseball, by George Genovese, with Dan Taylor
Day 30: The League of Outsider Baseball: An Illustrated History of Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes, by Gary Cieradkowski

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