From the category archives:

History

* Neo-classics?

October 19, 2009

Several new titles consider World Series past. Two — by Joe Posnanski and Mark Frost — deal with the 1975 Red Sox-Reds contest, which was highlighted by Carlton Fisk’s game-winner in the sixth game, the closest to that point Boston had come to winning a title since 1918.  The next most recent is Perfect, by […]

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Up on the roof…well, the attic actually. I was going through some stuff, trying to decide whether it’s time to lighten the load, so to speak. I hve a bunch of Sports, Inside Sports, Baseball Quarterly, and other assorted titles, long gone from this mortal coil. This one caught my eye: The July 1986 issue […]

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Tis the season. As the summer game segues into fall’s finales, no less than five titles deal with the World Series, including two about the 1975 games between the Red Sox and Reds, one about Don Larsen’s 1956 perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers, and But the one that goes back the furthest is The […]

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* TWIBB — October 16

October 16, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, October 16. Title Rank General Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & a Hall of Fame Hitter Talk about How the Game is Played, by Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson, and Lonnie Wheeler 1 The Machine: A Hot Team, a […]

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* Home movies

October 14, 2009

I think a fantasy for every collector is to come across a rare item totally by accident: a garage sale in which the seller wants to get rid of some bit of memorabilia that used to belong to a dead uncle. A book long-forgotten in an attic corner. Or a cannister of grainy black-and-white film […]

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by Brian Biegel. Crown, 2009. Miracle Ball is at once a sweet and haunting book. The premise has the author, whose day job is that of an independent filmmaker, on an obsessive quest to find the whereabouts of an/or ownership of the ball hit by Bobby Thomson in the 1951 playoff game against the Brooklyn […]

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Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson, collaborators in the new Sixty Feet Six Inches, were the guests on yesterday’s Fresh Air. The host, an awestruck Dave Davies, asked several questions that one would expect from non-fans, and that’s fine, given the nature of the outlet; I’m sure sports radio hosts would ask more hard-hitting questions designed […]

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So the playoffs are set: Yankees vs. Angeles, Dodgers vs. Phillies. The Yankees will try for their 27th pennant. That would pretty much qualify them for a dynasty, wouldn’t it? So in that spirit, I dug up this old iece, taken from a larger review for BookPage in April, 2000. As the new millennium approached, […]

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* Bits and Pieces

October 10, 2009

From Newsday, this review of Lew Paper’s book on Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game. Jimmy Scott, of Jimmy Scott’s High and Tight, wrote this review on Satchel, by Larry Tye. Two more sites on baseball cards: The Topps Archives (non-baseball material as well), and another devoted specifically to the 1980 Topps set. The event […]

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*TWIBB — October 9

October 9, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, October 9. Title Rank General The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posnanski 1 Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s […]

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Abrams publishers has come out with some very neat books over the last couple of years. The house, which specializes in art and photography books recently began a line of perpetual calendars on themes.The main problem reminds me of an episode from my childhood. When I was about 10, we had dinner at a local […]

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* TWIBB — October 2

October 2, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, October 2. Title Rank General The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posnanski 1 Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & a Hall of […]

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Two Baseball Legends, Two Boxing Champs, and the Unstoppable Thoroughbred Who Made History in the Shadow of War, by Mike Vacarro (Doubleday, 2006) (Note: This review originally appeared in my previous blog on baseball and books a few years back.) While he does cover other sports in his newest offering, Mike Vaccaro, New York Post […]

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The holidays are over now so let’s get back to business. More on Posnanski and his new book, The Machine, from the Wall Street Journal; Hartford Courant; Rob Neyer and ESPN (interview); Cincinnati.com (“Latest book may be the best on Reds’ dynasty”); Baseball Prospectus Radio had this interview with the author with the author (audio […]

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* TWIBB — September 25

September 25, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, September 25. Title Rank General The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posnanski 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 Game […]

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The Library of Congress will host a two-day event to mark the release of Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress, “a beautifully illustrated book featuring more than 350 images (many never before published) from the late 18th century to the late 20th century,” beginning Friday, Oct. 2. The program, which features an appearance […]

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* Baseball's "urban dictionary"

September 22, 2009

From the eclectic PitchersndPoets site comes the “Rogue’s Baseball Index,” a sort of urban dictionary about the national pastime. RBI is divided into several categories, including entries about players, fans, management, media, et al. A random entry: The George Will is a hyper-intellectualized fan who gets so caught up in the history and legend and […]

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* TWIBB — September 19

September 19, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Saturday, September 19. Title Rank General The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, Posnanski 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Games, Lewis 2 The Yankee Years, Torre and […]

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* Bits and pieces

September 14, 2009

The Washington Informer, an African-American community newspaper, published this item on Larry Tye, author of the new Satchel Paige biography, prior to his Sept. 9 appearance at the Smithsonian. Jim Bouton chats with ESPN’s Jim Caple in this video/article. (Here’s a different video:) Every year come August, you can count on a bunch of articles […]

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* Keeping up with the Times

September 13, 2009

A few germane baseball items over the week that I overlooked: In today’s edition, John Klima, author of the recently relased Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend (Wiley), published this item on how the Yankees blew their chance to sign Willie […]

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