Summer Game Books: 26 books

When Tobey Shiverick turned 78, he gave himself the gift of fulfilling a lifelong dream: To see a ballgame at every major league stadium in one season. Five months, 34,000 miles, a cycle and a steal of home later, he was done. The result was an unforgettable trip across the country of baseball, and...

There is no bigger stage for baseball than the World Series, yet much of its richest history is obscured by the likes of Mazeroski, Gibson, Reggie, and the Yankees. Who better than Seamheads.com’s Michael Lynch to uncover and present some of the most fascinating, forgotten Classic feats and failures...

On a torridly hot August day in 1920, Ray Chapman was struck and killed by a Carl Mays fastball, in what was and remains the only on-the-field fatality in the history of major league baseball. The drama of Good Guy Chapman versus Bad Guy Mays is a wrenching human tale. Add to it an intense pennant...

Sol White was a star player and manager in the early years of organized black baseball. In 1907 he teamed with sports writer and team owner Walter Schlichter to publish the first and only history of the stars, teams, and great feats of the era. The writing is all White’s; Schlicter provided the...

Few individuals share Brent Loehr’s fascinating and diverse perspective on baseball. Taste the truly international flavor of America's greatest game as he did, and draw life lessons from the inspiring stories of others. Brent’s baseball journey began in Western Canada. A playing career that...

Few authors live, understand, and can express the magic of baseball like Mike Shannon, editor of SPITBALL, The Literary Baseball Magazine, now in its 33rd year of publication. Shannon’s characters are mortals who drink the elixir of baseball against the finiteness of their lives. They are as different...

Like baseball itself, DREAMING .400 exists outside of time; past, present, and future merge. Its 11 short stories are a rally cheer for the magic of the game—in the seductive swing of a girl who turns tinsel into gold; in the passion of an orphan on a quest to reach the Astrodome; in a vision of...

As the title suggests, the focus of the book is Ted Williams’ on-the-field career. Each year is covered in detail, as the narrative presents numerous game accounts and detailed stats against a carefully drawn historical backdrop. Classic Williams anecdotes are stripped of embellishment and presented...

The first comprehensive history of baseball during the Great Depression, by the esteemed Charles Alexander. Read about the players, personalities, and political forces that shaped and guided America’s most beloved game, and allowed it to continue to thrive even during some of the country’s darkest...

Bums is the intimate story of one of the most beloved franchises ever, told by the men who lived it, and brilliantly compiled by the master of baseball oral histories, Peter Golenbock. From the building of Ebbets Field through those first dismal decades; to Durocher and Rickey and the development...

Go deep inside the game with Seamheads.com founder and SABR stalwart Mike Lynch. Amazing stories about the players, managers, and owners that will educate and fascinate even the most ardent students of the game.From “cup of coffee” cases--some tragic, some incredible--to owners who make Marge...

The Impossible Dream 1967 Red Sox is the story of the incredible team that captured the heart of New England and give birth to Red Sox Nation.Herb Crehan’s intimate and detailed account of that wonderful season could not have been written without the author’s unparalleled access to the...

Boots Poffenberger spent only parts of three seasons in the major leagues, but is unquestionably among the wildest figures of his era--one that included Dizzy Dean, Bobo Newsom, and Van Lingle Mungo. Boots was every bit as much an all-star character as the others. He enraged management by playing...

The Forever Boys is the funny, heartbreaking, authentic story of the men who played in the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association.Peter Golenbock spent the season with the league champion St. Petersburg Pelicans. Like the league’s other seven teams, the Pelicans were a collection...