Coming down the pike

Or is it “pipe”; I can never keep that straight. Both seem valid.

Anyway, time to see what new baseball books are on the horizon.

Using Amazon as my source and just to let you know, I’m not including the titles that come out every year, such as Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster or Baseball America’s Prospect Guide, et al.

Naturally, this list is incomplete and will expand as time goes on; also release dates are not always hard and fast.

I’ve asterisked the titles I find especially intriguing. Having said all that, let’s go. In no particular order than the way the titles appeared on Amazon:

♦ Baseball America’s Head of the Class (Nov. 2019). An overview of the top college programs and prospects over the last 40 years. I don’t follow college sports and can’t really understand a lot of people who do. Unless there is some connection with the school. Just sayin’.

♦ Sixty-One in ’61: Roger Maris Home Runs Game by Game, by Robert M. Gorman (McFarland, December 2019)

♦ The Resisters: A novel, by Jen Gish (Knopf, Februaruy 2020)

♦ The Cactus League: A Novel, by Emily Nemens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2020)

♦ Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution, by Jared Diamond (William Morrow, March 2020). Another home run revolution?

♦ The Subway Series: Baseball’s Big Apple Battles And The Yankees-Mets 2000 World Series Classic, by Jerry Beach (Sports Publishing, April 2020).

♦ Building the Brewers: Bud Selig and the Return of Major League Baseball to Milwaukee, by Chris Zantow (McFarland, January 2020).

♦ Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, by Alan D. Gaff (Simon and Schuster, March 2020). *

♦ The Big 50: New York Yankees, by Peter Botte (Triumph, March 2020)

♦ The Cup of Coffee Club: 11 Players and Their Brush with Baseball History, by Jacob Kornhauser (Rowan and Littlefield, March 2020)

♦ The Hall Ball: One Fan’s Journey to Unite Cooperstown Immortals with a Single Baseball, by Ralph Carhart (McFarland, January2020)

♦ San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team, by Lincoln Mitchell (Rutgers University Press, November 2019)

♦ The New York Mets All-Time All-Stars: The Best Players at Each Position for the Amazin’s, by Brian Wright (Lyons, February 2020)

♦ The Miracle of 1969: How the New York Mets Went from Lovable Losers to World Series Champions, by Rich Coutinho (Sports Publishing, March 2020)

♦ Rod Carew: One Tough Out, by Rod Carew and Jaime Aron (Triumph, May 2020) *

♦ Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay, by Todd Zolecki (Triumph, May 2020)

♦ The Major League Baseball Bat, From Tree to the Swing, 19th Century to Today, by Stephen M. Bratkovich (McFarland, February 2020)

♦ Fan in Chief: Richard Nixon and American Sports, 1969-1974, by Nicholas Evan Sarantakes (University Press of Kansas, October 2019) *

♦ Cleveland Rocked: The Magic of the 1995 Indians, by Zack Meisel (Triumph, May 2020)

♦ The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Questionable Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law ((William Morrow, April 2020) *

A few uninformed opinions:

• What are the chances (as of this writing), that the Mets and Yankees could face each other this October, requiring a second book down the line?
• Lou Gehrig in his own words? Put me down for one, please.
• Another book about the ’69 Mets” An a year late? All due respect, how much more is there to say?
• I normally don’t include fiction, but The Resisters has an interesting premise, judging by the blurb on its Amazon page. I often wonder what baseball will be like in the semi-distant future.
• The years 1969-1974 were transformative for the U.S (and myself), so I’m down to see how sports changed during that period.
• Rod Carew is one of the underrated Hall of Famers, if there can be such a thing.
• I enjoyed Keith Law’s last book, and I’m expecting to do the same with his new release.

More to come.