From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “11 new baseball books for your 2023 lineup, from the World Series and opening day to Bo Jackson.” The use of the word “new” is curious, since the Jackson book came out almost six months ago. Same for The Grandest Stage and some books are even older.
This is the time of year I get a lot of story pitches from various organizations that do “studies” about MLB. Some are more interesting than others. Here are two for your consideration: “The best Major League Baseball mascots, ranked by Americans” (the title of which strikes me as a bit Chauvanistic) and “How Major League Baseball fans view the new rules of the game” from YouGov, “an international research data and analytics group” according to its website.
There’s also a survey of “which teams have the biggest fan base online” from Betway
* Followers on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter were added up. Data correct as of 03/22/2023 1Social listening data correct as of 03/23/2023
(One more thing, in case you didn’t already know how expensive tickets are: From Gameday, a list of median prices for opening day, ranging from a high of $371 for the Giants and Yankees to a low of $47.50 for the Mets and Miami. And that’s just for the tickets.)
From the Chicago Tribune (and other papers), this piece about local-boy-makes-good Ira Berkow’s newest book, Baseball’s Best Ever: A Half Century of Covering Hall of Famers. Here’s my Bookshelf Conversation with Berkow following the book’s release.
From Tyler Kepner in his New York Times‘ piece dateline March 27: “Joe Kelly is not Jim Bouton, whose “Ball Four” sold millions of copies by perfecting (and all but inventing) the genre of inside-the-clubhouse memoir. Kelly’s “A Damn Near Perfect Game,” with Rob Bradford, is both a defense of baseball, an explanation of its evolution and a suggestion manual for how to improve it.”
I just subscribed to The Athletic. They’re currently having a promotion: $1 a month for a year, a savings of $6.99 per month. First up from them, “MLB Preseason Power Rankings: Where teams and their starting pitchers stand on Opening Day.”
From Cleveland.com, former Indians pitcher Sam McDowell and author Marty Gitlin will hold a book signing for The Saga of Sudden Sam: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Sam McDowell at the Baseball Heritage Museum on Sunday, April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m.
David Jerome discusses his new book, Bill Virdon: A Life in Baseball, on the Hooks & Runs podcast.
I’m not sure what BrooksSociety.com is all about; their organization does not come up on the first page of a Google search and I’m too lazy to look further. But they posted these lists of the ten best books about Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. Interestingly, Jane Leavy’s bios on both tops each list. Here’s my Bookshelf convo with her on the former and the latter.
John Rosengren discusses his new offering, The Greatest Summer in Baseball History: How the ’73 Season Changed Us Forever, on WNST. Look for a Bookshelf Conversation with him in the weeks ahead.
Hidden behind its paywall is The Wall Street Journal‘s “Five Best: Baseball Biographies [as] Selected by Ryan McGee, the author of Welcome to the Circus of Baseball.
This is the time of year when the absence of Roger Angell hits pretty hard. But The New Yorker carries on with baseball articles such as “The Spectacular At-Bat That Ended the World Baseball Classic.”
is available on Amazon.com,
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