I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m a big fan of “The Office” on NBC. I’ve seen every show, own four seasons on DVD, and am to the point I’ve watched most of my favorite episodes two and three times, minimum. In a classic episode, the fictional paper merchant depicted, Dunder-Mifflin, launches a Web site and projects that by the end of the day, it will be the company’s new top salesman. This rankles neurotic, star salesman Dwight Schrute, who scoffs he can beat a computer. Working aggressively, he proceeds to do just that.

In a similar spirit, I am about three-quarters of the way through a 1995 book, Ted Williams’ Hit List, that the Red Sox immortal co-authored with Jim Prime ranking the 20 greatest hitters of all-time. Williams compiled his book in an age before high-speed Internet and statistical repositories on the Web made such comparisons instantaneous. For being only 15 years old, the book seems from an entirely different era, when subjective analysis by writers or a legend like Williams was the best baseball fans could get. Now, anyone with a computer can be an expert.

Before I go any further, I should offer Williams’ Top 20. It is:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou Gehrig
3. Jimmie Foxx
4. Rogers Hornsby
5. Joe DiMaggio
6. Ty Cobb
7. Stan Musial
8. Joe Jackson
9. Hank Aaron
10. Willie Mays
11. Hank Greenberg
12. Mickey Mantle
13. Tris Speaker
14. Al Simmons
15. Johnny Mize
16. Mel Ott
17. Harry Heilmann
18. Frank Robinson
19. Mike Schmidt
20. Ralph Kiner

(Note how Williams doesn’t include himself; in the book, he puts himself at the bottom of this list with a slash mark in place of a numerical ranking.)

Before getting into the rankings, which span most of the last half of the book, Williams offers his methodology: OPS, a combination of slugging and on-base percentage. The statistic favors players who hit for a combination of average and power, and since it’s percentage-based, it pushes up hitters like DiMaggio, Foxx and Greenberg who had shorter careers. Williams refers to the stat as PRO in the book, saying he got it from John Thorn and Pete Palmer and that he relied heavily on their work, Total Baseball to determine his rankings.

If there was anyone qualified to offer judgment on hitting, it might have been Williams, who made it his mission in life to learn everything he could about batting, conferring with greats like Cobb and Hornsby, retiring with a .344 lifetime clip, and going on to write multiple revered books on the subject. But I only wonder what heights Williams’ analysis could have soared to if he’d had access to a goldmine like Baseball-Reference, which offers similarity scores between different batters and a list of the leaders for just about every recognized stat, including OPS.

Poking around the site, I saw that Williams didn’t stick hard and fast to OPS in his determinations. Otherwise, he’d have included players like Dan Brouthers, Lefty O’Doul and Hack Wilson, who were among the top-20 lifetime for OPS for inactive players in 1995 (interestingly, of those men, only Wilson is in the Hall of Fame, though that’s a post for another time.) Williams notes on page 89:

I didn’t want Ted Williams’ Hit List to be a dry statistical analysis of what I think is the most exciting and uniquely human facet of baseball, but I did want to be able to back up my insights with some hard and fast truths.

What we’re left with is a book that’s equal parts stats and Williams’ expertise and first-hand accounts of the various players. It’s not a bad compromise, and it might actually be superior to anything a computer can spit out, but a part of me wishes Williams were still around to write a new updated edition. Actually, that’s an understatement, and it says nothing of how interested I’d be to hear Williams’ views on the fact that most of the recent players who merit consideration for this list have been linked to steroids. But that’s a post for another time.

I occasionally review books for this site. A compilation of reviews can be found here.

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from a representative of a publishing company, Sourcebooks. The rep said New York Times bestselling author Len Berman has a new book due out this fall, The 25 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The rep wrote:

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on his list, which include Alex Rodriguez (preposterous if you ask me) and excludes names like Rod Carew, Cal Ripken Jr., Ken Griffey Jr. and several other 90’s players that have proven themselves above and beyond many that made the list.

I welcome story ideas, and I’ll write about interesting topics that relate to this site. Berman’s book met those criteria, so I encouraged the rep to send me a copy. He obliged and also included Berman’s bestseller, The Greatest Moments in Sports, which I’ll review in the next few weeks, once I read it.

I finished Berman’s newer book yesterday, and it wasn’t bad. It’s meant for children, similar to many baseball books I had growing up. The book didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, but it offers good information for children learning the history of the game. The 25 players are mostly fine ambassadors to baseball, offering kids a slice of America’s pastime at its best. In alphabetical order, Berman’s top 25 players are:

• Hank Aaron
• Johnny Bench
• Ty Cobb
• Joe DiMaggio
• Bob Feller
• Jimmie Foxx
• Lou Gehrig
• Bob Gibson
• Josh Gibson
• Rogers Hornsby
• Walter Johnson
• Mickey Mantle
• Christy Matthewson
• Willie Mays
• Stan Musial
• Frank Robinson
• Jackie Robinson
• Alex Rodriguez
• Pete Rose
• Babe Ruth
• Mike Schmidt
• Warren Spahn
• Honus Wagner
• Ted Williams
• Cy Young

(As I’ll make clear before the end of this post, my top 25 differ somewhat.)

Berman, an eight-time Emmy Award-winning sportscaster, determined picks with a Blue Ribbon Panel consisting of Ralph Branca, Frank Deford, Steve Fortunato, Roland Hemond, Jeffrey Lyons, Chris Russo, and Bernie Williams. The panel members apparently voted subjectively on who they considered worthy, with the 25 highest vote recipients making the book. Given how much baseball changes every generation, the panel’s unscientific look might have been the fairest selection method. Still, a quantifiable ranking system may have helped, too.

I have recently begun to pay more attention to one of the latest crazes in the baseball research community, a metric called Wins Above Replacement (WAR.) This rates the number of extra wins a player theoretically provides over an average replacement, incorporating both offense and defense and suggesting a player’s overall worth. Using TheBaseballGauge.com, I found the 25 best players for career WAR. They are as follows, with players who didn’t make Berman’s list in boldface:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Ty Cobb
3. Walter Johnson
4. Honus Wagner
5. Cy Young
6. Barry Bonds
7. Willie Mays
8. Tris Speaker
9. Stan Musial
10. Ted Williams
11. Hank Aaron
12. Eddie Collins
13. Mickey Mantle
14. Roger Clemens
15. Rogers Hornsby
16. Christy Matthewson
17. Grover Cleveland Alexander
18. Lou Gehrig
19. Rickey Henderson
20. Mel Ott
21. Frank Robinson
22. Nap Lajoie
23. Joe Morgan
24. Greg Maddux
25. Tim Keefe
    

WAR isn’t perfect, and in general, stats often don’t tell the whole story. No metric could fully measure the contributions to baseball of Jackie Robinson, who has an eternal spot in my top 25. Still, looking at WAR and other formulas popular within the Society for American Baseball Research can double-check for worthy old-timers like Speaker and Collins.

Berman notes in his postscript, “Who knows? Maybe this book will turn into a ‘doubleheader.’” That route offers plenty of material. I could list 50 great players who didn’t make the cut including Carew, Ripken and Griffey. I don’t know if they make my top 25, and I think if Rodriguez is on Berman’s list, Bonds should be there as well (personally, I don’t feel like honoring either man or Clemens.)

Here’s my top 25:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Willie Mays
3. Ted Williams
4. Ty Cobb
5. Walter Johnson
6. Hank Aaron
7. Satchel Paige
8. Lou Gehrig
9. Cy Young
10. Honus Wagner
11. Jackie Robinson
12. Stan Musial
13. Christy Matthewson
14. Tris Speaker
15. Rogers Hornsby
16. Eddie Collins
17. Pete Rose
18. Rickey Henderson
19. Josh Gibson
20. Joe DiMaggio
21. Greg Maddux
22. Roberto Clemente
23. Mickey Mantle
24. Sandy Koufax
25. Joe Jackson

I encourage anyone who’s interested to post their top 25 in comment form here.

I periodically review baseball books. For a compilation of my reviews, go here.

In January, I had a rare, wonderful day of research that any writer may know, a stretch of hours where time suspended for a great chase.

I decided not long before to write a book on Joe Marty, a ballplayer from my hometown, Sacramento. Marty came up in the Pacific Coast League with Joe DiMaggio and was considered the better prospect, though he didn’t fulfill his potential. He played in the majors from 1937 to 1941, then went to World War II and played the rest of his career with Sacramento in the PCL.

One day in January, through hours and hours of research online, I verified four of Marty’s big league teammates were still living, all in their nineties. One man died a couple weeks later, but of the remaining three, I have since interviewed one, mailed questions for another, and need a phone number for the third (his name is Al Monchak, and if anyone has any ideas, please email me.)

My inspiration? Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star, a 2008 biography by Tom Swift on the Hall of Fame pitcher. I received a copy in December and flipped to the acknowledgments not long after where Swift notes, “I sought anyone who could remember being in the same room with Charles Bender. It’s a small club.”

Marty last played in the PCL in 1952 and died in 1984, so it’s not difficult to find men who knew him. Swift faced a greater challenge since Bender played all but one game of his big league career between 1903 and 1917 and died in 1954, leaving no descendants. But to reference Teddy Roosevelt, I think Swift did a good job with what he had where he could.

The 2009 winner of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research — which Swift and I belong to — the book features exhaustive research. The main story spans 290 pages followed by a 36-page bibliographical essay that summarizes what is apparent throughout: Swift gathered every possible Bender detail, scouring microfilm of long-dead newspapers like the Philadelphia North American and chasing interviews. I venture Swift had many days like the magical one I experienced. His research sets a standard for me to live up to with my book.

Swift captures a seemingly complete portrait of Bender, good and bad. While noting his masterful pitching and ability to read opponents tipping their pitches, Swift also documents Bender’s lifelong drinking and that he killed a pedestrian while driving. A writer can easily neglect to seek these details.

Swift has a vivid, smooth writing style. Late in the book, he references an interview subject, a player Bender coached late in life named Joe Astroth. Swift writes:

The memory is precarious. A middle-aged man can seemingly remember precise details of the moment as a child he was stung by a bee and yet still forget where he left the car keys fifteen minutes before he had the recollection. Perhaps the vivid memories are so only because we’re fooling ourselves. The past is obscure, a convincing imposter (sic), too often remembered differently by different people. But sometimes you don’t need to be able to verify everything to find truth. Joe Astroth knows that Charles Bender’s life influenced his own.

My quibbles with the book are minor. Basically, I wanted more about the prejudices Bender faced as a Native American ballplayer. It’s what drew me initially. While the book notes racist coverage Bender received, more words recount game highlights. I understand such details are obligatory with sports-related books, but I don’t think they offer the most sensational story. The book didn’t hook me until the final chapters. There’s a reason I’m reviewing a book in mid-June that I received in December, though in fairness, I also have a short attention span. The Boys of Summer is a personal favorite, and I needed a year to finish it.

Swift writes in the bibliographical essay, “In Bender’s case, the usual fog of baseball legend and lore has been layered with the reality that he lived and played in the face of untold prejudice. That he was seldom asked about the most important aspect of his life story means a full portrait is categorically impossible. I have tried simply to present the closest thing I could.”

Fair enough, though I’d love to see what Swift can do with a contemporary subject. I think Swift chose Bender since he was born in his native state, Minnesota. Perhaps a biography on Kirby Puckett, a tragic figure there, could be in order.

Baseball cards played a big role in my childhood. As I’ve written here before, I got my first cards when I was around three, started collecting a few years later and at one point had roughly 5,000 cards. I outgrew card collecting by the time I hit high school, though nostalgia leads me to buy a pack from time to time. Most recently, I purchased four packs of 1988 Topps on eBay for $4 with shipping and got young versions of Tony Gwynn, Cecil Fielder and Kevin Mitchell. It was $4 well spent.

I think every kid who built a baseball card collection has a hallowed first year of collecting. For me, it was 1990 when I was six turning seven, and my best friend Devin and I sorted, talked about and loved that year’s Topps cards. For Josh Wilker, the hallowed year was 1975.

Wilker, a fellow blogger, recently had his first book published, Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards. Sports Illustrated called it a “wry, rueful memoir” in a May 10 review and dubbed Wilker “one of 2010’s most promising literary players.” After seeing that article, I emailed Wilker for a review copy. Wilker forwarded my email to his publisher, Seven Footer Press, and I quickly received the book, which I finished this morning. It was a great read.

Wilker’s book has been well-praised, from SI to ESPN to other bloggers, as it should be. Every generation, I think there are perhaps a few baseball books like this: marvelously written, literary and unique. When Ball Four debuted in 1970, the New York Times wrote, “Ball Four is a people book, not just a baseball book.” Cardboard Gods works similarly. It joins The Boys of Summer as the second baseball book I’ve recommended to my mom.

Ostensibly, the book is about baseball cards, with each chapter an autobiographical essay devoted to a specific card spanning 1974 to 1981, the bulk of time Wilker collected before he too grew out of it. Wilker writes about his childhood and early adult life, using cards as metaphors, and towards the end especially, chapters fly by with limited mention of players. It works, though. I’m glad the book is billed being about cards, as I doubt I would have heard of Wilker otherwise. That being said, Wilker could have written about mud, and the writing would appeal. Wilker has an MFA from Vermont College and won a short fiction award, and in Cardboard Gods, it shows.

The story drew me in. Early on, I started to care about Wilker’s family members, wondering how their stories would come out, and appropriately, the book includes personalized cards for them. Though there is great baseball writing, like a reference to the Milwaukee Brewers as a “malodorous unshaven rabble,” my favorites passages concern Wilker’s mom’s boyfriend fashioning a metal chimney to his VW van in a failed attempt to work as a mobile blacksmith or Wilker, his brother and his dad going to a rock concert (featuring “a few prolonged explosions that I knew were songs only because they began and ended.”)

Were this a movie review, I would give Cardboard Gods three and a half stars out of four. My lone criticism here — which could be the baseball geek/former sportswriter in me talking — is that Wilker offers obvious stuff about players. When I got to the Mike Kekich chapter, I knew it would be about him swapping wives with his teammate, Fritz Peterson (that really happened.) I knew the Herb Washington chapter would talk about him being the only designated pinch runner in baseball history. I wanted more about the players, but perhaps that would have detracted from the memoir.

After finishing the book in the wee morning hours today, I emailed Wilker. He references a few non-sports books in his work, including Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, which was assigned reading from a favorite college writing professor. My professor also raved about Tobias Wolff and other writers, so I asked Wilker about his influences. Wilker replied a couple hours later, “I love Tobias Wolff and have read just about everything he’s written, I think. This Boy’s Life especially had an influence on my book.” That makes sense. I read both books (Wolff is one of my favorites, too) and Wolff and Wilker have similar life stories, both coming from broken homes, getting expelled from prep schools, and struggling to transition into adulthood. Of course, both men also beautifully related their stories years later.

One final thing. In Cardboard Gods, Wilker writes about youthfully penning a fan letter to his hero, Carl Yastrzemski and never hearing back. I wondered if the book changed this. I asked if there had been any word from Yaz. Wilker replied, “Only in my heart.” If I were Yaz, I’d drop Wilker a quick line. I can’t imagine a better postscript for the paperback edition of Cardboard Gods. John Updike once wrote of another Red Sox immortal, Ted Williams, “Gods do not answer letters.”

Imagine if one did.

Since reviewing The Boys of Summer here in November, I have been meaning to write about more classic baseball books that I have read.  There are a few classics.  Ball Four comes to mind, as does The Glory of Their Times, Ken Burns Baseball and a recent addition, Game of Shadows.  But if The Boys of Summer is the best baseball book ever — and it’s probably either that or The Glory of Their Times — the next runner-up might be Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstam.

I read it and Ball Four around the same time during my senior year of college.  I wasn’t required to read either book, though for me, it wasn’t strictly pleasure reading; this was during a period when I figured I was going to be a sportswriter after graduating, and I wanted to read as many great pieces of sports writing as I could.  I’m glad I read both books.

I found Summer of ‘49 compelling for a number of reasons.  Halberstam, a Harvard graduate who won a Pulitzer Prize reporting the Vietnam War for The New York Times, deftly recreated the 1949 pennant race between the Boston Red Sox and eventual World Series champion New York Yankees.  A skilled reporter who began writing sports books in his forties, Halberstam interviewed nearly every living member of those Red Sox and Yankee teams, with the exception of Joe DiMaggio, who resisted participating.  Halberstam more than made due with the others, though.  The book ends with a beautiful, vivid recollection from Ted Williams that I won’t spoil here.

But the book is far from just a rehash of box scores with some quotes from a few players.  I could have written that– any half-competent hack could have, really.  Halberstam made his work distinct with anecdotes at once crisply written, original and funny.  Nearly five years on from finishing the book, I didn’t have to look long to find one such example, that comes from page 143.  Halberstam wrote:

Lefty Grove, one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the sport, had also come to Boston near the end of his career.  Grove kept a bottle of whiskey in his locker.  He was given to tantrums, though as Ted Williams noted, his tantrums were always beautifully controlled.  If he smashed his locker after a tough loss, he always did it with his right hand.

I remember thinking as I read the book that it didn’t seem perfect.  Structure-wise, it’s really just a chronology of the ‘49 season with a lot of interviews interspersed, which is how many baseball books are written, not that there’s anything terribly wrong with that. I would just submit that the greatest art is sometimes innovative, like Citizen Kane, a film decades ahead of its time when it debuted in 1941.  But the fact Summer of ‘49 even has me thinking in these terms says something.  I’ll probably read the book again at some point, even if simply in preparation to write a historical baseball book of my own and see how it’s best done.

I was disheartened when Halberstam died in a car accident in 2007 at 73, though I admire how he went: His obituary in The Times noted he was en route to interview former NFL quarterback Y.A. Tittle for a book when the car he was riding in got broadsided.  Great sportswriters always seem to be working right up until the time of their death, from Jim Murray to Shirley Povich to Red Smith.  While I hope it doesn’t sound pretentious to include myself in this equation, I hope I’m still writing decades from now.

Had something cool happen yesterday afternoon.

I got a knock on the door from the postman, who had a package for me.  I don’t often get much beyond bills in the mail, so I was intrigued.  It turns out a publisher had sent me a copy of a new baseball book.

I’ll rewind by saying that a few months ago, I requested a copy of a baseball book, Chief Bender’s Burden, so I could review it for this site.  The publisher, University of Nebraska Press, graciously sent me a copy, and yesterday, I received another book from them, Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball. I hadn’t requested this, though the correlation, I think, is that both texts are about deceased Hall of Famers, written by members of the Society of American Baseball Research (Side note: One of my goals for 2010 is to join this society; I think I more than qualify for membership.)

Anyhow, I am still reading Chief Bender’s Burden but have happily added this new book to the mix.  I’ll say this too: Anyone who wants to send me a baseball book, have at it; I will review anything that’s sent to me, though with that said, if it turns out to be not-so-good, I will most likely make note of that here.

As faithful readers of this space will know, I interviewed Jose Canseco in April 2008 on his promotional tour for his book, Vindicated. While researching Canseco in the days leading up to our meeting, I came across a notice for a forthcoming book on the former Oakland Athletics slugger and his teammate, Mark McGwire. The book was titled Bash Brothers, with the subhead, A Legacy Subpoenaed.

After contacting the publisher, Potomac Books, I interviewed the author, Dale Tafoya. However, my story wound up focusing on the signing, and I felt like Tafoya’s quotes would take away from the narrative, so I decided not to mention him. Tafoya accused me of using him for information, which would have been more ludicrous if he’d known me; in a sense, I’ve been researching Canseco since I was six. Most of what we discussed was stuff I already knew.

I subsequently received a review copy of Bash Brothers and was unsure what to do with it. My editor at the East Bay Express declined a review, since he’d just published my Canseco story. I contacted an acquaintance at the San Francisco Chronicle, they passed as well and the book thus sat unread. Eventually, it fell behind my bookcase, along with my unread review copy of Vindicated.

I always felt guilty about this and at times wanted to read the book but since that would have necessitated moving my bookcase, which would have necessitated getting all my books off of it first, I did not. However, I moved apartments this summer and finally recovered Bash Brothers. After finishing reading The Boys of Summer this fall, it was time to review Tafoya’s work.

I read Bash Brothers and all in all, it wasn’t bad. In fact, I rather liked certain parts, including the chapter that talked about an old Reggie Jackson spending a final season in Oakland to tutor Canseco and McGwire. Tafoya also commendably did four years of research putting together the book. He takes two pages at the end to list 112 people he interviewed, including former A’s players Dave Parker, Bob Welch, Dave Henderson and Dennis Eckersley and one-time baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who wrote the foreword for the book.

Missing from this group, though, are McGwire and Canseco. In fact, the book gives no mention to whether they were even contacted (Canseco was happy to talk with me; he arrived at his signing an hour early for our interview.) The book never produces a smoking gun, either, for McGwire or Canseco having used steroids, only quoting excerpts from Canseco’s bestseller, Juiced, offering vague quotes from McGwire’s former strength coach, Curt Wenzlaff, and saying McGwire had a younger brother who got into bodybuilding and probably did steroids.

Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts got Alex Rodriguez to admit to using steroids by alleging this in a book; two San Francisco Chronicle reporters obtained grand jury testimony that confirmed Barry Bonds juiced as well. Somehow, it doesn’t feel that Tafoya went deep enough in his research, though he has a great bit from former outfielder Ben Grieve, retired and angry at all the juicers who prospered while he stayed clean and struggled.

Tafoya himself came in something of an unknown, with the book flap saying he studied journalism at a community college. The front of the book lists a slew of other titles from the publisher that I’ve never heard of. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I would love to have a baseball book with my name on it, even if few read it.

Tafoya’s writing itself is nothing special. “The game of baseball was out of its element, it seemed,” Tafoya writes of the Congressional hearings Canseco and McGwire appeared at in March 2005. “As compelling as each opening statement appeared, more riveting moments seemed ahead. Feeling like scattered chunks of bread surrounded by a swarm of starving seagulls, Canseco and McGwire threatened to evoke the Fifth Amendment when cornered with a self-incriminating inquiry.” The book is filled with writing of this sort that always seems just a little off, stilted, reaching.

Even the title is awkward. How exactly does one subpoena a legacy? Then again, I may have been a bit biased coming off The Boys of Summer. Very few sports books are that poetic or well-written. I’m not any worse for having read Bash Brothers. I found it interesting enough, though I probably wouldn’t recommend it to a non-sports fan. I say this as someone who insisted my mom read The Boys of Summer.

Now all I need to do is read Vindicated.

After more than a year, I finally finished The Boys of Summer this afternoon.  Written by Roger Kahn and first published in 1971, the book is part oral history about the Brooklyn Dodgers and part recollection by the author of covering the team as a young reporter in the early 1950s.  I’ve read many baseball books.  This numbers among the very best.

To be sure, it is not quite perfect.  The latter two-thirds of the book, where Kahn interviews thirteen former Dodgers is plodding at times, a he-said-this, then-he-did-that style of writing that would lull were the subject matter not so historically compelling.  The book is also unabashedly sentimental, by Kahn, a Brooklyn native and lifelong Dodger fan.  At times, it feels overwritten.

Taken on the whole, however, the work is astonishing.  Overwrought though the emotional appeal may sometimes be, it is powerful again and again throughout the book.  Kahn captures a quadriplegic Roy Campanella in tears remembering past glories, the funeral for Jackie Robinson’s oldest son, killed in an automobile accident at 24, and in an epilogue written years later, Pee Wee Reese wheelchair-bound, cancer-ridden and close to death.  Perhaps the most moving passage captures the death of Kahn’s father:

I drove down dark streets at reckless speed.  The sidewalk was a rotten place to die.  Pebbled cement scrapes a twitching face.  A man deserves privacy at the end, and anesthesia.  Surely my father had earned that for a gentle life.

The historical contribution is also undeniable.  Even if the writing were abominable, and it’s not, I would be interested to read about the codas for men like Robinson, Campanella and Gil Hodges.  Kahn’s level of detail is also meticulous.  One of my college writing professors said a good writer is someone on whom nothing is lost.  Kahn’s book is layered with dialogue and asides, material I struggle to capture.  It’s much easier to tell than to show.  Kahn does the latter, admirably.

There are a lot of baseball books and many fade into obscurity after a short time.  Kahn’s work endures, a rare sports entry in the canon of Western literature.

__________________

Before I end here, I wanted to add two points, not significant enough to figure into a review but worth noting nonetheless.

Early on, Kahn reveals a small tell, probably unremarkable to most readers but glaring to a past sportswriter like myself.  Kahn writes on page four, “Beyond undertaking a newspaper assignment, I believed I was joining a team.  At twenty four, I was becoming a Dodger.”  Going through journalism school, I learned objectivity.  I covered many teams, from prep to pros and I was never a member of them, saved for the few school teams I actually competed for.

Late sportswriter Jimmy Cannon put it better when interviewed for a book on sportswriters, No Cheering in the Press Box. Cannon said:

Most of the guys traveling with ball clubs are more publicists than reporters. A guy might be traveling with the Cincinnati Reds, though it could be any team, and he refers to the ball club as ‘we.’  I’ve seen sportswriters with World Series rings, and they wear them as though they had something to do with the winning of the World Series.  Maybe they’re entitled to them.  Maybe their biased cheerfulness helped the club.  I wouldn’t know.  I would not wear a World Series ring.

Kahn, to his credit, does little to suggest objectivity, noting in the epilogue, “I was neutral all right.  Neutral for Brooklyn.”

A more stinging critique of Kahn’s style comes from a different breed of writer, Jim Bouton.  Where Kahn wrote dignity and grace and heroism, Bouton captured players as ordinary louts, pill poppers and womanizers in Ball Four, his playing diary about the 1969 season.  In I’m Glad You Didn’t Take it Personally, the follow-up to his bestseller, Bouton derided Kahn:

Not long ago Roger Kahn, a writer who did not like Ball Four, wrote in Esquire about a player who was losing his skills and knew it. ‘It is something to cry about, being an athlete who does not die young,’ Kahn wrote.   And all I could think was, bullshit.  Only a man who never played the game could have written that line.  It’s fake, like the men who cry when they can no longer play baseball are fakes.

While I doubt Kahn didn’t legitimately believe what he was writing, Bouton may have a slight point about the value of experience.  Regardless, I appreciate both of their perspectives.

Anyone who reads this space consistently will find that I make a lot of references to baseball books in my writing. Most of these are in fact books that I own. I’m proud to say I have a pretty decent personal baseball library that I’ve been accumulating since childhood. For whatever reason, baseball is a sport that lends itself to wonderful, poetic writing (along with boxing and horse racing I’ve heard) and today, I offer five essentials, the five baseball books I’d want to bring to a desert island were I ever stranded there:

1. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn

This is actually the latest book that I’m reading, and I’m only about 100 pages in, though already it’s wonderful. Kahn offers an autobiographical look at the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s, drawn from his days as a young beat writer for that team. Lots of former players are interviewed, including Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider.

2. Summer of ‘49, by David Halberstam

This takes somewhat of a similar approach to Boys of Summer, with lots of interviews of former players, though this time, it’s the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees of the 1949 pennant race who are chronicled. A Harvard graduate and former Vietnam correspondent, Halberstam offered a book full of depth and insight. He ends with a nice quote from Ted Williams, though on an interesting side note, Joe DiMaggio refused to participate in the book.

3. The Glory of their Times, by Lawrence Ritter

Possibly the very best baseball book out there. The book is an oral history of the early days of baseball, comprised of interviews with about 20 ballplayers whose careers spanned the beginning to middle of the 20th century. One of those books that also provided a public service, it’s no surprise that the original tapes Ritter made interviewing the players are now in the Hall of Fame. In fact, a number of the players profiled here later were inducted into the Hall, possibly because the book brought awareness to their careers. Ritter later wrote another great book, The Lost Ballparks, about demolished fields.

4. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton

This one broke ground when it came out. A diary of the 1969 season by Bouton, an acerbic relief pitcher, the book exposed players as drunks, amphetamine users and philanderers. Though comparatively tame today, the book violated the unwritten code of clubhouse privacy and shook baseball. The San Diego Padres burned a copy of the book before a game, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had a meeting with Bouton in an attempt to coerce a retraction, and Pete Rose taunted “Fuck you Shakespeare” from his dugout. Incidentally, the book is also funny, intelligent and just vulgar enough to be charming.

5. Baseball, by Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward

This was released in conjunction with Burns’ epic 1994 documentary of the same name and is basically a written account of what aired on PBS. Filled with pictures, oral histories, essays and anecdotes, this is probably the finest chronicle of baseball history among the several that I own. I hope Burns offers an updated version at some point.

I could recommend a whole slew of other titles, though I’ll keep this short today.