(Part 2) Best baseball books according to redditors

Finally, I get to participate!

The best source for information on this is Mike Sowell's book The Pitch that Killed, which covers both the context of Chapman's death and the pennant race of 1920. Statistical information is generally taken from Baseball-Reference.com.

Baseball was in a transitional period already when Chapman died. The game, which had been nominally professional since 1867 and truly professional a few years after that, had only recently consolidated around the National and American Leagues as the true, major leagues. The game had been dominated by pitchers for much of its 20th century history; huge bats, fast players, improving fielding technology, and a variety of other factors had combined to pull down what had been very high scores in the 19th century. The game had been growing rapidly in popularity for a couple of decades, and was seen as a fast-paced, rowdy alternative to other, more gentlemanly pursuits such as cricket.

But in 1920, baseball was undergoing a true, existential crisis unlike any that it has seen since. Though emblematized in the Black Sox scandal of 1919, which was unfolding through the 1920 season, gambling had become a plague on the game, as many players openly took bribes and few were punished for it -- Hal Chase, who was about as big a star as baseball had in the 1910s, was famous for it, and may have been a go-between for Arnold Rothstein and the Black Sox conspirators, and he wasn't alone in doing this sort of thing.

Though star players were well-paid (Ty Cobb made $20,000 in 1919, or about $275,000 in today's dollars), most players in this period were working class guys who went home and worked in the offseason. For many men, including most of the Black Sox, the hint of real riches that came from game-fixing and side-betting was more than just greed: it could materially change their financial situation, and all for a modicum of effort (though a fair amount of risk). With its credibility shot and its finances vastly more precarious than they are today, MLB faced ruin.

Meanwhile, the way the game was played was being revolutionized by Babe Ruth. I won't wax too poetic about Ruth, but it's important to understand some bullet points about him, because what happened after Chapman plays into how Ruth changed the game:

1. It's not just that Ruth had those seasons in which he was hitting as many home runs as the rest of the league combined; to some degree, it was almost inevitable that someone would start swinging for the fences and discover that it worked. It's that Ruth's descendants and contemporaries explored the area near, and under, his records, but almost never surpassed them.
   
   
2. The way Ruth played the game was not only incredibly successful, but it was hugely profitable. Why do the Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball, while the Giants play in San Francisco? The Giants had been a vastly more successful and profitable team to that point -- but Ruth revolutionized the game, and along the way, revolutionized the Yankees' finances.
   
   
3. For more than 40 years after Ruth's advent, baseball was played in a slow, station-to-station manner that emphasized home runs, a state of affairs that did not begin to change until massive integration and westward expansion changed the environment in the 1960s.
   
   Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, Chapman, Mays, and the pitch that killed. Mays was Ruth's teammate, a submariner, the Yankees' ace, and not a popular man within the game. He was a hard man, a bit of a loner, and he threw pitches that took full advantage of batters' fears of being hit to get his outs. This was in the days before night baseball, remember, and one of the jobs of a pitcher was to dirty up a ball, using dirt, spit, tobacco, shoe black, and any number of other things that might obscure the ball; too, umpires were not nearly so quick to replace balls, and so, as the game wore on, the ball came to take on a gray-brown color, and was often misshapen and prone to flying in unpredictable ways when pitched or hit. Mays, as a right-handed submariner, used this (and was not alone in using this) as a way of disguising his pitches and keeping batters off guard: especially in early- and late-season games, later innings were often played in semi-crepuscular conditions, meaning that any batter digging in against Mays and his brown ball was literally gambling his life on his ability to pick a speck of brown out of the darkling skies.
   
   Now, is this actually why Chapman was hit? It was the middle innings of an August game in New York, a game that only lasted a couple of hours and would have been started in mid-afternoon -- in other words, probably not, at least the weather conditions part of it. But Mays was famous for dirtying the balls, and it's probably true that a brown ball would be harder to see in almost any conditions than a shiny white one. And a lot of people assumed it was. The death of Chapman, coming at the same time as the Black Sox scandal, put a real fright into people. It contributed to the culture of reform that brought forth increasing professionalism, the hiring of a commissioner (the vastly overrated Kenesaw Mountain Landis), and similar things.
   
   The main thing that happened to the culture of the game is that the practice of scuffing the ball became much less common, as rules that were already on the books started to be enforced. Also, though it's hard to find hard data on the matter, umpires were instructed to constantly cycle in new, white balls, so even those that were doctored never became brown and flat. These two changes, along with Ruth's teaching the world to play baseball, fed into the game changing massively -- the game changing, basically, into what it is now.
   
   Mays was left bitter after the incident, if later interviews he gave were any indication. He'd always been a rough-and-tumble pitcher with a reputation for throwing at people, including a notorious incident with Ty Cobb several years earlier. He felt he became a pariah within the game, though he'd never been popular, and there is evidence to contradict him (a substantial raise over the offseason, for instance). Some were shocked that he, unlike some Yankees teammates, never went to Chapman's assistance; he also pitched several more innings that day. It's true that, despite a fairly illustrious career that continued for several more years, he received only passing support for the Hall of Fame -- though he, like Chance and the Black Sox, was dogged by gambling rumors that he denied but couldn't shake.
   
   Were guys scared of Mays? Well, yeah. But they'd always been scared of him. It was how he got outs. Baseball was a tough man's game in those days, and though I'm sure it gave guys pause, there wasn't a wave of people refusing to play when Mays pitched. I can't imagine there were a lot of illusions about what was possible when playing baseball for those guys. Chapman wasn't the first guy to get beaned. He was just the first one (that we know of) who died.
   
   Interestingly, the Indians -- who won on the day Chapman was hit -- would overtake the Yankees in September to win the pennant even without their star shortstop, and eventually beat Brooklyn in the World Series. (Chapman was a good hitter and known to be a good fielder, though there's no statistical data to give us any accurate reading on the latter statement.) This may have been because the man who took over for Chapman was a 21-year-old former football star named Joe Sewell, who would end up in the Hall of Fame himself eventually.
   
   EDIT: Additional sources: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, retrosheet.org
   
   FURTHER EDIT: I noticed two minor errors in rereading this. They are:
   
   
4. Though there were rules about ball conditions that were generally not enforced, I left a clause off that sentence -- after the Chapman incident, and almost directly as a result of it, the spitball per se was disallowed, with a small list of pitchers grandfathered in. Mays was not on that list, but still had his best season in 1921.
   
   
5. The 1920 pennant race was tight straight through, but I implied that the Indians were behind the Yankees in the standings on 16 August, the day Chapman was hit. They were, in fact, tied with the White Sox, half a game ahead of New York, on that date. Both the Indians and Yankees fell behind Chicago after the Chapman game, and Cleveland would be behind New York and Chicago both as late as 30 August.

Actually that data was already available from the Lahman database. our dirty secret is that we don't do much of the research that goes into figuring out the numbers. I like to say we put a friendly face on the numbers.

To find out where the numbers came from I recommend Alan Schwarz book, "The Numbers Game" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F8HC9WM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
The real heroes are Pete Palmer, Retrosheet, David Neft and many many others.

I did the entire site all by myself for 15 years. Hans Van Slooten took over last spring and I was kicked upstairs. A lot of the ideas are from Bill James, Pete Palmer, Tango Tiger and others, but I implemented them all.

Crosby is also just a freak athlete though. He could have probably been a pretty good MLB player had he decided to take baseball seriously instead.

I don't remember the exact quote, but in Full Count, there's mention of scouting Canadian players and one scout says "There's this really good kid out in Cole Harbour, who could turn into a star. Just one problem, he's also really good at hockey."

I once rented a book from the library a few years back which was a pretty good summation of Nationals history all the way up to modern day. What Johnson did on some of those postseason teams was amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/You-Gotta-Have-Heart-Washington/dp/1589798430/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=history+of+washington+nationals+baseball&qid=1570974442&sr=8-3

This is the book right here. Good read.

The book provides interesting tidbits such as how Teddy never really did like baseball which was surmised as the reason why Teddy didn't finish the race first all those years.

Not sure if anybody has ever managed to excel at both sports but this is supposed to be a very good book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660 although it is as much about the cultural differences between the two sports (and therefore about America and cricket playing countries).

North California cricket association: https://www.facebook.com/NCCA4Cricket/ I feel like I am turning into an internet stalker. Honestly mate, if you get the chance then give it a go. The plane that you swing the bat is totally different, the mental requirements are different. Rugby and American Football are always compared with both sides ultimately ending up saying 'ours is better...because it is'. You might be great at cricket, you probably wouldn't be (and that is ok because neither are 99.9% of the rest of the people who like the game) but I would leave off using words like 'awesome', 'easier' and 'crush' until the first time you stand there at the crease with somebody running in who is happy to either hit the wicket or you with a ball that can break your ribs.

If you can, watch the local broadcasts or listen to the radio broadcasts. You will eget a lot of random stories.

As for learning, the best if you just listen to stories from old O's fans. I'm sure your grandma would love to share. Also, wiki is probably a good start. I'd recommend starting with just searchign wiki and reading about people:

Cal Ripken
EArl Weaver
Rick Dempsey
Brooks Robinson
Jim PAlmer
Frank Robinson
Eddie Murray

There are obviously tons of others to look up but those would be a good start beyond just current players.

Also, a quick amazon search yielded this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Baltimore-Orioles-Decades-Street/dp/0878331786/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373302806&sr=8-2&keywords=orioles+magic

I have no idea if it's good or not but it could be worth checking out.

And welcome! Go O's!!!!

We'd welcome you as a ravens fan too if you ever get fed up with the Eagles =D

I own a few of these, read all but "Tales", and they're pretty good.

Orioles Encyclopedia

Baseball in Baltimore - photos

Pitching, defense and 3-run Homers - 1970 O's

The Earl of Baltimore

Baseball in Baltimore - 100 years

History of a Colorful Team - St. Louis & Baltimore

Four Decades of Magic

Tales from the Dugout



We should start a group on LibraryThing... edit: done.

http://www.amazon.ca/Full-Count-Four-Decades-Baseball/dp/0345812530

There's the Amazon linkage.

First off, sorry for the very tardy reply.

Bill James created the formula for comparing players. To quote the product description from its Amazon.com page, "Win Shares, a revolutionary system that allows for player evaluation across positions, teams and eras, measures the total sum of player contributions in one groundbreaking number. James' latest advancement in the world of statistical analysis is the next big stepping-stone in the "greatest players of all-time" debate."

According to what I've been told a good portion of the 729 pages of the book is the formula. (Yikes!)


As I mentioned in my previous post, I tried to reverse engineered the formula, as actual Win Shares are hard to find online. The Hardball Times have the stats from 2004 to 2008, here.


My formula proved to be pretty accurate compared to the real Win Shares, (after checking, better than my original post let on. Correlations of 0.964454241 for batting and 0.975917803 for pitching).

As well, when comparing batters with pitchers I made a simple adjustment where a score of 1 represents an average batter or pitcher. (WinShares+)


You asked about Blue Jays, here are my WinShares+ for our 2011 Blue Jays:

Jose Bautista 4.452374202
Yunel Escobar 2.216505966
Adam Lind 1.886325449
Ricky Romero 1.256942346
Eric Thames 0.962502621
Carlos Villanueva 0.91155779
Brandon Morrow 0.771125554
Jose Molina 0.73926944
Edwin Encarnacion 0.733394727
Corey Patterson 0.724255056
J.P. Arencibia 0.723165948
Rajai Davis 0.620873494
Juan Rivera 0.596676048
Travis Snider 0.592509269
Jason Frasor 0.493483763
Jon Rauch 0.475365161
Marc Rzepczynski 0.449524589
Aaron Hill 0.412014019
Casey Janssen 0.388963643
Luis Perez 0.324981719
Mike McCoy 0.316367653
Brett Cecil 0.30566225
Octavio Dotel 0.292764748
Jesse Litsch 0.275750902
Jo-Jo Reyes 0.247845682
Shawn Camp 0.209237456
Kyle Drabek 0.201235745
Frank Francisco 0.182529487
John McDonald 0.157193379
David Cooper 0.056151869
Zach Stewart 0.052773517
Jayson Nix 0.034588224
Mike McCoy (P) -0.003304916
Scott Richmond -0.021442667
David Purcey -0.041792814
Chris Woodward -0.045259959


Edited: Formatting.

You Gotta Have Heart is a good history of baseball in D.C., but it only goes through the 2012 season. Could probably use an update!

All due respect to Curt Flood, who's been mentioned here and who I believe to be one of the most inspirational people to ever exist in the sport, but if one man is responsible for the end of the reserve clause it was Marvin Miller.

If you're looking for a first person source, he wrote a book on this called A Whole Different Ballgame: The Inside Story of the Baseball Revolution.

It's an interesting and very entertaining read (though he does tend to repeat a few stories throughout the book). I'd imagine that you can find it in your local library. I would recommend it not just to you, but to anyone who has an interest in baseball history, particularly in the area of labor relations and free agency.

Marvin Miller is probably in the top 5 in terms of people who've had an effect on the game of baseball, and it's a travesty that he's been barred from the Hall of Fame by those who are still bitter about free agency.

https://www.amazon.com/Shipwrecked-Peoples-History-Seattle-Mariners/dp/1935347187

Anybody read this? It's a pretty good read. Explains why the mariners have been mostly terrible for 40 years.

best way to learn about things is to read about them; luckily baseball is easy to read about because it's amazing

http://www.amazon.com/Stan-Musial-An-American-Life/dp/0345517075

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Nights-August-Strategy-Heartbreak/dp/B002CMLRAQ

http://www.amazon.com/October-1964-David-Halberstam/dp/0449983676

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677858.The_Spirit_of_St_Louis

can vouch for all of those. also if you're a new fan of baseball, you should read baseball books in general because the history of the sport is incredibly rich. feel free to ask

You may be interested in reading Baseball Without Borders, it deals with the way baseball is played and conceived in a number of countries around the world. If you are looking to compare and contrast a country's "league" with that of Major League Baseball the only real choice is Japan - and even that is difficult. (And this is only because the Caribbean countries, and South America, don't really have leagues of the same standard.) The classic You Gotta Have Wa covers things pretty well when it comes to NPB. More than just a listing of the numerical differences like stats and stadium sizes, it delves into the whole mind frame and how the sport is based on an entirely different perspective of the "team" mentality.

If you want to learn about baseball history from a statistics viewpoint, the Numbers Game is really great.

>he's alright in my book.

And in his book.

Yep. But he and Armando Galarraga handled it extremely well. I'm reading their book Nobody's Perfect. Really interesting, I recommend.

I tried to ask him that, but he wouldn't give an interview!

(interviewed all the other living people involved with the play, for an upcoming book):

https://www.amazon.com/October-Remember-1968-Tigers-Cardinals-Played/dp/1683582020

I don't know about books, I'm a big fan of the Ken Burns documentary. I know there are a few on Franzee and Ban Johnson, they're about as iconic to early baseball biographers as Connie Mack or Babe Ruth, especially this period of their experience.

A few that look potentially educational are this and this. I also don't imagine any book on Landis wouldn't have a large focus on this around the beginning and anything taking the founding of the American League through to the post war/WW2 period probably would provide a lot of relevant back-story.

Not having ready any of these though I'm basically only linking them by quality of reviews. The first one though looks like a pretty spot on source for what you might be looking for.

Ed Smith, county cricketer who also played 3 Tests for Engand, wrote a book talking about comparing and contrasting his experiences with the Mets and English cricket. You might find it interesting: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660

An ex cricketer (and superb writer) did, he wrote a book as well. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660

It did refer to the fans and stadium, because of the atmosphere, but it also came to describe the team because of the feuding between Reggie and others, notably Martin and Munson.
http://www.espn.com/classic/s/000807billymartinadd.html

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2017/06/10_things_to_know_about_bronx_zoo_1977_yankees_luc.html

I've been meaning to get Sparky Lyle's book about it as well.

Okrent and Lewine's The Ultimate Baseball Book, I had the original 1979 edition, gave me hours and hours of pleasure, for many years.

This book along with the Ken Burns DVD box-set "Baseball" (which I also bought), are a perfect pair.

For shits and giggles, I highly recommend Sparky Lyle's "The Bronx Zoo", those damn '78 Yankees were insane! I laughed, a lot, often.

This book

is a great read if you're interested.

He even got a book deal out of it. I know in the player polls he is constantly at the top of the list of the best umpires in the game.

couple of mouseclicks later, its added to my christmas list

https://www.amazon.com/Breathing-Orange-Fire-Jose-Altuve/dp/1530067693/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1480507387&sr=8-4&keywords=breathing+orange+fire

You can't really fault LaRussa for leaving the A's. Render that Mr Haas died in 1995 and his family sold the team to Schott and Hoffman. No one knew what was going to happen, but it was clear the new owners weren't trying to win now. After Haas died those were some rough years for us until the early 2000's. I've always respected LaRussa and one of my prized possessions is a baseball that my grandfather got autographed by him and gave to me back in the late 80s. By all accounts LaRussa is a stand up guy and his ARF does a lot of good for animals.

Also, one of the better books I've read is 3 Nights in August about a Cubs/Cards series. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002CMLRAQ?pc_redir=1405024198&robot_redir=1

Needless to say, I really want this bobblehead.

How much reading do you want to do? If you want to just get caught up on every team/player for next season in a long but fun to read book format, I'd suggest putting in your order now for this years Baseball Prospectus. It's more thorough than any sane person would ever need it to be, but I can't recommend it enough if you're looking for detail. For more current news, Fangraphs and Baseball Reference are solid for stats and info, while the various SB Nation sites have more team based stuff.

If you want more history, the Ken Burns Baseball series is on Netflix, and is a ton of fun to watch. If you're more of a reader, the Bill James Historical Abstract doubles as a nice doorstop, but has a nice, fun look at the past.

Other than that, lurk around here to catch up on big news and general public opinion, and maybe try to get yourself into a fantasy league.

Edit: Almost forgot podcasts (I love podcasts, but I'm new to baseball podcasts, so grain of salt and all). Productive Out's PRODcast is pretty fun, it's two guys from Thrice and Kowloon Walled City (if you're into music at all) basically shooting the shit. Effectively Wild is more baseball-centric, but updates more frequently. I've heard mixed reviews on the Fangraphs podcast, both rave positives and really negative, but haven't given it a listen yet myself.

Very cool that you're doing this. I did a cross-country trip of Canada and the US this past summer with soccer as a secondary reason, and was able to hit up a few Copa America Centenario games (Chicago, Philly, and Foxborough) and MLS games (Montreal, Vancouver, and Columbus.) Happy to provide any help if you want. I would also check out this book (https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Care-Never-Get-Back/dp/0802123767) if you have the time. It's about a man who planned a road trip to see all 30 baseball stadiums in 30 days. Its humor helped me a lot when I was feeling overwhelmed by the road

It's a little aggressive, I admit. But not as much as these guys.

Honestly, some of those consequences were beautiful. The way both Joyce and Galarraga reacted in response was just total class, up and down. They even wrote a book together.

I haven't read any of these, but a look at a university library catalogue shows me these titles, some look pretty interesting!

• The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball 'the definitive history of baseball in Cuba'
  
• Baseball Without Borders: The International Pastime An academic work has a section on baseball in Cuba, along with sections on Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Korea, China, etc. Used copies for only 95¢!
  
• The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream How Orlando El Duque Hernandez escaped Cuba and went to play for the Yankees.
  
• Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey into the Heart of Cuban Sports Looks like this is a more contemporary approach?
  
• Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball more of a history book, appears to have lots of photos. No ebook.

It's worth doing some research on the high up guys Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong and their lack of knowing anything about what it takes to run a successful baseball team. They're business men with no knowledge of the game.

A good summary of the history of the team and all of the highs and lows from players, wins, bad moves, good moves, good leadership and everything is the book Shipwrecked. The author, Jon Wells, is a longtime M's fan and writer for the magazine "Grand Salami" (the famous grand slam call from Dave Niehaus.

You can get it for pretty cheap online http://www.amazon.com/Shipwrecked-Peoples-History-Seattle-Mariners/dp/1935347187/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374088787&sr=1-3&keywords=shipwrecked and I'm sure you can find it at Barnes and Noble for about the same.

I have been a big fan since 95, got a little fed up around 05 or so and took a break... but I'd consider myself a die hard since the 2009 season (had a bit to do with Griffey returning :P).

Also, welcome to the area! It's beautiful here and you'll never want to leave.

Pitchers getting hit by line drives and such is pretty rare (says the fan of a team that has hit two pitchers with line drives in 2 years). No one has ever been killed that way, though there have been concussions. Actually, the only death in a baseball game I'm aware of was a hitter that got hit by a pitch. The problem with a pitcher wearing head or face protection is that it would necessarily limit their field of vision in a way that would really kill their game to fix a problem that is actually pretty rare. If they ever do enforce such a thing I guarantee you it will be because pitching is getting too strong and the league wants to create more scoring.

You need an intermediate understanding of statistics to see why win shares are misinterpreted. The simple version is that wins are highly correlated with win shares (ie the covariance between wins and win share is not 0, even worse the covariance between win share for two players on the same team is not 0, this makes all popular interpretations of winshares largely invalid)

Here is the primer that invents/discusses win-shares from the baseball perspective: link. Bill James, a statistician for the Red Sox, is the guy who invented the concept of win shares.

Homoscedasticity is an assumption for t-test, which essentially compares two values, ie kinda analogous when you are trying to compare win shares for two players.

PS: for anyone still seeing this, the link to the book is here:

https://www.amazon.com/October-Remember-1968-Tigers-Cardinals-Played/dp/1683582020/

Well let me suggest a book for you then, if for no one else. I’m gonna pick it up tomorrow.

https://www.amazon.com/Burying-Black-Sox-Baseballs-Succeeded/dp/1597971081

This book is the result of years of research into the 1919 Black Sox scandal and it brings a ton of glossed over info to light. I have a theory on a seemingly unrelated issue that I believe this book will support, plus it’s been 100 years since they threw the series and I thought it would be cool to take a look at it now.

I saw that book in Chapters a month or two ago, but sprung for [Full Count instead.] (http://www.amazon.ca/Full-Count-Four-Decades-Baseball/dp/0345812530)

Well the 2017 Bill James Handbook has been out for a while. Maybe that's what you're referring to I dunno. But there are some good essays and stuff in there.

Bill Brown, the Astros' now-former PBP guy, has written a book on Jose Altuve's 2016 season. Haven't read it yet (I think it came out just yesterday), but Altuve's season was pretty interesting and Brown's an intelligent guy, so that's promising.

I think Doug does an awesome job given his limited resources. He doesn't have a lot of wiggle room so when he makes a mistake, its magnified.

Did you know that over the last 10 years, the Brewers have 2nd best record in the central, and the 5th best record in the NL

The 2015 Baseball Prospectus ($18 cheap) had a great article on the Brewers and DM and worth checking out.

I don't mean to come off as a corrector, especially since I like your awe at Bonds' insane number of intentional walks, but lineup protection is a somewhat of a myth.

Check out this Baseball Prospectus post on it from 4 years ago.

Also, if you ever get the chance, read Baseball Between the Numbers by the Baseball Prospectus team.

It highlights everything from how batting average and ERA aren't the best indicators of a player's worth...to the myth of lineup protection.

I'm not saying it happens often, but even poor hitters can have years that appear to be "breakout years" that are in fact just statistical flukes. Baseball Between the Numbers has a chapter that talks about the plain statistical variation that is likely to happen in any season.

Like I said, it's likely in a given year that a single player will post 50+ points on his average higher than his actual talent level, and if he's already a good player, it's enough to propel him to MVP status.