Roundtable: The Essential Baseball Library

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume II (1987).

 

Contributors: Dick Beverage, Bill Borst, Jon Daniels, Cappy Gagnon, Bob Hoie, Tom Jozwik, Phil Lowry, John Pardon, Larry Ritter, Leverett T. Smith, Jules Tygiel, Alan Blumkin, Jake Carlson, Jay Feldman, Mark Gallagher, Lloyd Johnson, Jack Kavanagh, Vern Luse, Frank Phelps, Louis Rubin, A.D. Suehsdorf, David Voigt.

 

In last year’s SABR Review of Books, we performed a quick phone survey of selected members, asking each “What baseball book can you return to most often?” In other words, “Which is your favorite?”

One of the first things we noticed was that most SABR members had trouble keeping that answer to fewer than six or eight books. The average SABR member is a genuine reader who has a baseball library, not just a book or two. The next logical question, then, becomes: What books make up the essential baseball library?

We arrived at a request for fifty books, because it seemed to be both sufficient and manageable. Around fifty members were asked to participate; twenty-three did. (This wasn’t meant to be a purely quantitative scientific survey; the members asked to participate are a true blue-ribbon panel of serious baseball writers and researchers. In fact, five of those who responded wrote or edited books on the list.) The result was over 60 typed or hand-written pages. More than 200 books were mentioned.

Yet of all that, the amount of agreement was remarkable. The “library” created has 57 entries. (Some are multiple-volume sets.) To be listed, a work had to be recommended by more than three participants. Not surprisingly, the two works mentioned most often were The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times.

In addition to mere lists, the participants provided their comments, some a few words, some rather extensive. Some even engaged in a little stream-of-consciousness pondering in their replies. (“I liked this one better than that one, but if I mention his one book, I really should mention…”) Alan Blumkins’s last comment was “l did not overlook Ball Four.” Vern Luse’s list is appended separately; he created an essential library for researchers who, like he, specialize in the minor leagues. Jay Feldman was careful to point out the difference between “essential” works and “favorites,” and so didn’t include Roger Angell, Shoeless Joe or Hoopla. Tom Jozwik looked at it from this angle: “Suppose my wife decreed that my library had to be reduced to 50 books for whatever reason. What would I keep?”

The categorization here was not developed before the titles were counted; in other words, we didn’t go looking for books to fill a category the fifty-seven books selected had more mentions than the others. Then we put them in categories to make for easier analysis. As always, there is blurring between some categories.

The biggest surprise is the author who appears most often: Donald Honig. Although almost no one would rank him with the great historians, his solid work on the American and National Leagues and his two interview books, Baseball Between the Lines and Baseball when the Grass Was Real– all made the list. Roger Angell, Thomas Boswell, Jim Brosnan, Robert Creamer, Pat Jordan and John Thorn each placed more than one book in the library. Charles Einstein’s Fireside trilogy and multi-volume histories by David Voigt and Harold Seymour were listed, too. (No one mentioned The SABR Review of Books Volume I ; although several other SABR publications, notably Lowry’s Green Cathedrals and the two volumes of Minor League Stars were listed. )

By categories, here are the books, with assorted comments from the contributors. A full list of the library is located on page 18.

STATISTICS

• Neft, Cohen, Deutsch, The Sports Encyclopedia — Baseball.
• The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia.
• The Sporting News Baseball Guides and Registers.
• Thorn and Palmer, The Hidden Game of Baseball.

There was consistent agreement across this category. Few other statistical works were mentioned at all. Most contributors indicated that both the Neft/Cohen/Deutsch and Macmillan works are necessary, although, typically, there were disagreements.

Alan Blumkin: “The Neft/Cohen work is better organized than Macmillan. It is also easier to carry.”

Jack Kavanagh: “The 1969 Macmillan has more specific content for minor players, but the latest updating is, of course, necessary too.”

Jack Carlson: “Neft and Cohen fill the few gaps left in Macmillan, but don’t include the 1800s.”

Bob Hoie on The Hidden Game: “If for nothing but the history of statistics and statistical analysis this would be essential.”

Dick Beverage on the same: “This isn’t really my area of interest, but the subjects this book raises are very thought-provoking and interesting.”

HISTORY

• Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out.
• Daguerreotypes. The Sporting News.
• Fleming, Gordon. The Unforgettable Season.
• Honig, Donald. The American League and The National league.
• Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.
• Kahn, Roger. The Boys of Summer.
• Lieb, Fred. Baseball as I Have Known It.
• Okrent and Lewine, eds. The Ultimate Baseball Book.
• Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Early Years and Baseball: The Golden Age.
• Spink, J.G. Taylor. Judge Landis and Twenty-Five Years of Baseball.
• Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy.
• Voigt, David. American Baseball (3 vols.)

Cappy Gagnon said of Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract: “Any words I use to praise this work will be insufficient.” Frank Phelps noted that Bill dedicated the book to Bob Davids — “a perfect start!”

The two multi-volume scholarly baseball histories — by Harold Seymour and David Voigt — each had particular fans. A.D. Suehsdorf on Seymour: “Impeccably researched, absolutely accurate, complete and pleasingly written. All that’s missing is the third volume on the modern era.”

Frank Phelps on Voigt: “Outstanding scholarly history closely relating baseball to the mainstream of American history.” On Professor Seymour, Frank noted, “Work of the highest quality.” Bill Borst said simply of Seymour: “The best histories ever written.” Alan Blumkin offered this perspective: “Seymour is more detailed (than Voigt) but also much more difficult to read.”

Tom Jozwik on The Boys of Summer: “For some reason I haven’t been able to get into Kahn’s more recent works, but this one certainly belongs. “

Jon Daniels clarified his feelings about two works. On The Ultimate Baseball Book: “The ultimate baseball picture book.” And on Honig’s American League and National League: “The pictures are what makes these two books worthwhile.”

Dick Beverage had this to say about Judge Landis: “A good account of the impact the Judge had on the game during his term as commissioner.” But Lawrence Ritter points out of the same book: “Actually Fred Lieb wrote this.”

Our favorite comment on the category was Jack Carlson’s note on The Unforgettable Season: “The AL race was close, too.”

TEAM HISTORIES

• Mead, William B. Even the Browns.
• Putnam team histories.

Dick Beverage on Even the Browns: “A most readable book with lots of good information about the wartime era. “

Adie Suehsdorf on the Putnam series: “Pedestrian as some of them were, Harold Kaese’s Boston Braves and Lee Allen’s Cincinnati Reds are particularly good. “

Dick Beverage has read all the Putnams. Here are his particular recommendations: “The Yankees, The Dodgers, and The Giants, all written by the legendary Frank Graham; Lee Allen’s The Reds; The Indians has a complete discussion of the Cry Baby Indians of 1940 and the 1948 pennant; The Senators is valuable for its discussion of Walter Johnson; Lieb’s The Red Sox and The Tigers and Lieb and Baumgartner’s The Phillies; Kaese and Lynch’s The Milwauke Braves is an updated version of The Boston Braves through the first Milwaukee season.”

IN THEIR OWN LEAGUE

• Coffin, Tristram. The Old Ball Game.
• Gerlach, Larry. Men in Blue.
• Kerrane, Kevin. Dollar Sign on the Muscle.
• Lowenfish and Lupien. The Imperfect Diamond.
• Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Their Times.

This category consists of works that truly are one of a kind (the best in an area, if not the only. ) The biggest surprise to the compiler was the Coffin work. I stumbled across it in a New York second hand bookstore, and it was only one of a fistful of baseball books I brought home that day. What a find. But I had since figured that no one else had ever seen it. I was glad to find out I was wrong. Apparently a similar thing happened to Tom Jozwik. His wife bought him the book for his birthday. He calls it “the best birthday present I ever received — from anybody.” Frank Phelps is less emotional: Coffin is “must reading for those who would understand the public image of baseball.”

Dick Beverage on The Imperfect Diamond: “A history of baseball labor relations, it’s an extremely thoughtful book that makes one much more sympathetic to the players’ position.”

Dick Beverage on Dollar Sign on the Muscle: “A pity, but I see this book frequently on remainder tables.”

Lawrence Ritter on The Men in Blue: “Interview-type books depend on the interviewer’s skills as an interviewer and as a writer. Gerlach is tops on both counts.”

Naturally, the praise was universal for Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times. Perhaps Louis Rubin said it best: “simply the greatest baseball book ever written — the distilled essence of the game. I can read this one over and over.”

Adie Suehsdorf adds a more thoughtful note on why Ritter’s imitators didn’t always compare. “This book opened the way for a number of oral histories and is still the best of the bunch. The tape recorder endows these books with vivid authenticity, and the best interviews are warmly human. Unfortunately, these are the exceptions. Many old-time ballplayers have no real perspective on themselves or the great men they played with or against. They have no talent for autobiography. For every Edd Roush, still sputtering vigorously and profanely about McGraw half a century after the fact, there are all too many Willie Kamms talking as though his career were someone else’s.”

BIOGRAPHY/AUTO- AND OTHER 

• Alexander, Charles. Ty Cobb. 
• Bouton, Jim. Ball Four.
• Brosnan, Jim. The Long Season and Pennant Race. 
• Creamer, Robert L. Babe and Stengel: His Life and Times. 
• Durocher, Leo. Nice Guys Finish Last.
• Honig, Donald. Baseball Between the Lines and Baseball When the Grass was Real.
• Jordan, Pat. A False Spring and Suitors of Spring.
• Murdock, Eugene. Ban Johnson, Czar of Baseball.
• Smelser, Marshall. The Life That Ruth Built.
• Veeck, Bill. Veeck as in Wreck

The only subject that approached controversy in this survey concerned the two famous biographies of Babe Ruth. Only four books in the entire survey received more mentions than Robert Creamer’s Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. Yet more than a few people felt strongly that Marshall Smelser’s The Life that Ruth Built surpasses it. Both Bill Borst and Cappy Gagnon rated Smelser ahead of Creamer. Jon Daniels feels that Babe “isn’t as provocative as Sobol’s or as scholarly as Smelser’s but definitely the most complete.” Louis Rubin says, “Creamer’s is very good. Smelser’s is better. “

Frank Phelps says that the Smelser work is “extremely detailed, exhaustively researched. ” Dick Beverage takes the other side: “Babe is the best baseball biography ever. ” Alan Blumkin goes one step further; he feels that both Creamer’s Stengel and Babe are “probably the best baseball biographies ever written. ” But Frank Phelps called Murdock’s book on Ban Johnson “the best baseball bio yet!”

As Darrell Berger’s insightful review in the last issue described, many people found A False Spring a book that was bigger than baseball. Tom Jozwik: “Beyond a surface story, it’s a loss-of-innocence/coming-of-age tale, a diary of small town life that’ll make the city reader feel blessed with his postage stamp yard and high taxes.” Jules Tygiel: “Perhaps the best book about life in the minor leagues and failure, rather than success, in baseball.” Lawrence Ritter says that Pat Jordan is “another writer in the Angell-Boswell class.” Jon Daniels remembers of The Suitors of Spring: “This is where I learned about Steve Dalkowski.”

Two writers whom not only history, position, first names and syllabification inevitably link are Jim Brosnan and Jim Bouton. Each seems to have a place in the hearts of SABR readers. Lawrence Ritter said of Brosnan’s ground-breaking The Long Season: “As far ahead of its time as Galileo. ” Cappy Gagnon recalls a special treat from The Long Season: “His inclusion of Twain’s critique of Fenimore Cooper’s literary Indians is priceless. “

And Dick Beverage asks the sensible question: “Why hasn’t Brosnan written more books?”

On Ball Four, Jon Daniels comments, “The original ‘kiss-and-tell’ baseball book seems tame now.” While Tom Jozwik cautions, “Never forget that before there was a Bouton, there was a Brosnan.” 

FICTION

• Kinsella, W.P. Shoeless Joe. 
• Malamud, Bernard. The Natural

It was frankly a surprise to the compiler that so many SABR members were unable to arrive at a consensus on more baseball fiction. Several were mentioned (Coover and Roth), and some were praised highly. But not by more than a couple folks. Maybe Luke Salisbury’s article provides some answers why.

Jules Tygiel commented on Shoeless Joe: “I read this one aloud to my wife.” Bill Borst mentioned Greenberg’s The Celebrant, O’Connor’s Stealing Home, Bang the Drum Slowly, Hoopla, Shoeless Joe, and Coover. But of The Natural he said, “The movie was better.”

THE MINORS 

• Obojski, Robert. Bush League. 
• Society for American Baseball Research. Minor League Stars I and II. 

Dick Beverage on Bush League: “The standard general history. You can’t find as much information about all of the leagues under one cover any place else.”

ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS

• Allen, Lee. The Hot Stove League. 
• Angell, Roger. Five Seasons.
• Angell, Roger. Late Innings. 
• Angell, Roger. The Summer Game.
• Boswell, Thomas. How Life Imitates the World Series. Why Time Begins on Opening Day.
• Davids, L. Robert, ed. Insiders’ Baseball.
• Einstein, Charles, ed. The Fireside Books of Baseball (3 vols. ) and The Baseball Reader (a one-volume compilation from the three.)
• Thorn, John, ed. The Armchair Book of Baseball.

Bob Hoie on Hot Stove League: “One of the first serious baseball histories I read and it blew me away. I couldn’t believe all that information was available. I’ve never been the same since.” Cappy Gagnon agrees: “If he wrote the Yellow Pages, I’d read them. Hot Stove League is the only baseball book I’ve ever read with the word oleaginous in it.”

Lawrence Ritter on Einstein: “It’s hard to understand how the publisher could let these classics go out of print.”

Most of the people who mentioned Roger Angell or Thomas Boswell listed all their books. Except for Mark Gallagher on Five Seasons: “I never read The Summer Game, but it can’t be any better than this one. ” Jack Carlson on Angell: “He excels as he spellbinds.”

AIan Blumkin says, “Five Seasons contains one of the two most sensitive pieces of baseball writing I’ve ever read: the piece on the demise of Steve Blass’ pitching effectiveness.”

Bill Borst on Boswell: “The most penetrating baseball writer today, by far.”

NEGRO LEAGUES 

• Holway, John. Voices from the Great Negro Baseball leagues. 
• Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball was White.

Universal agreement here, too. These two works, along with Jules Tygiel’s Baseball’s Great Experiment (listed in the “History” category) most people agree cover the subject pretty well. If you’re interested in hearing about the rest, check back to Jules Tygiel’s overview of the genre in SABR Review 1.

BALLPARKS

• Lowry, Phil. Green Cathedrals. 
• Reidenbaugh and Carter, eds. Take Me Out to the Ball Park. 
• Shannon, Bill. Ballparks.

Tom Jozwik on Take Me Out to the Ball Park: “The most impressive book I’ve seen on the subject of stadia. By relating the history of what goes on inside the parks, this is something of a baseball history of many cities. ‘

Adie Suehsdorf on Green Cathedrals: “A unique compilation of basic material not available elsewhere.”

VERN LUSE’S SPECIAL MINOR LEAGUE ESSENTIAL LIST 

1. Baseball: The Early Years and Baseball: The Golden Age by Harold Seymour. The former has the best bibliography on baseball history; the latter is especially valuable for the racing of the birth and early years of the National Association (Minor Leagues). 
2. Microfilm Index of Minor League Baseball Cities by Jerry Jackson. Although this was not a published book, it has been one of the most frequently consulted of all my possessions. 
3. Guide to Ohio Newspapers, 1793-1973, Steven Gutgesell, printed by the Ohio Historical Society. Would that other states had such books! 
4. Texas League Record Book, William Ruggles. Originally published in 1930, various editions of greater or lesser quality have been issued by the league. 
5. Baseball in California and Pacific Coast Leagues, Fred Lange. Good data in first-person anecdotes ranging back to the 1880s.
6. Southern League Record Book, South Atlantic League Record Book, and American Association Record Book.
7. Who’s Who, reprints from Ag Press, dating back to 1913. Especially good in the 1920s and 1930s. 
8. Reach Guides and Spalding Guides: of some use in the pre-WWI era, deteriorated heavily in 1919-1940 era, disappeared in 1946. 
9. Sporting News Guides: quite reliable beginning in 1946, deteriorating in accuracy beginning about 1960. 
10. Sporting Life, on microfilm. I have the complete run. This is without question the single most important research tool I own. For study in the 1883-1916 era, an unparalleled asset. 
11. Sporting News, on microfilm. Two shootings of early TSN exist; one is very bad, picture quality poor, and the other is negative (SABR copy).