In keeping with the Springtime theme, we are drawn to the great outdoors and eventually to that diamond in the rough on which baseball can be played, watched, enjoyed, and debated. The idleguy.com Library is pleased and proud to add a few more books on baseball to the collection begun last season. Those books, free to download as are these, can be found on the Books page of the August 2024 Issue.
Bill Veeck was an inspired, consummate from office showman, and one of the greatest baseball men ever involved in the national pastime. This classic autobiography, written in conjunction with sportswriter Ed Linn, is an uproarious book loaded with the history of baseball and tales of players and owners, including some of the most entertaining stories in all of sports literature.
A consummate innovative front office workaholic, Bill Veeck had a vast and tumultuous history within and without the major leagues. He was treasurer and assistant manager of the Chicago Cubs from 1933 to 1941; president and owner of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers (1941-45), Cleveland Indians (1947-49), St. Louis Browns (1951-53), the Chicago White Sox from 1959 to 1961 and again from 1976 to 1980. From 1957 to 1958, Veeck was a sports announcer for NBC, and in 1993 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. His books include The Hustler's Handbook (written with Ed Linn) and Thirty Tons a Day.
America and the national pastime grew rapidly after World War II. Baseball changed dramatically from a 19th century pastoral relic to a continental modern sport sparked by the advent of television, liberation, and new attitudes. Six Major League clubs relocated to new cities, capped by the coast-to-coast moves of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. Four expansion teams were created from thin air. Before football became bigger than life, baseball captured the post-war tremors in cities and towns across America, uniting its people with its unique charm and everyman appeal.
Dozens of black stars emerged after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Players formed a union and higher salaries were realized. Baseball's metamorphosis was driven by larger-than-life personalities like the bombastic Larry MacPhail, Branch Rickey, Connie Mack, showman Bill Veeck and the wry and wily Walter O'Malley. The upheaval they sparked broadened the great game's appeal, setting the stage for innovation and further expansion in seasons to come.
This anthology brings together twenty-eight exceptional short stories about the great game of baseball. Written over several decades by some of America's favorite writers, including Zane Grey, James Thurber, Damon Runyon, Garrison Keillor, Ring Lardner, P.G. Wodehouse, Frank Deford, and Chet Williamson, many of the stories are about the game itself; others use baseball as a backdrop for timeless themes, such as morality, greed, and love.
As good as it gets in terms of literary quality, this collection of short stories is great reading for old-timers and neophytes alike. Where else can you get Garrison Keillor, Damon Runyon, and Frank Deford in one collection on the same topic? Here it is.
Roger Angell has been writing about baseball for more than forty years . . . and for my money he's the best there is at it," says novelist Richard Ford in his introduction to Game Time. Angell's famous explorations of the summer game are built on acute observation and joyful participation, conveyed in a prose style as admired and envied as Ted Williams's swing.
Angell muses on Fenway Park in September, on Bob Gibson brooding in retirement, on Tom Seaver in mid-windup, on the abysmal travails of the Mets, on a scout at work in rural Kentucky, on Pete Rose and Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez, on the astounding Barry Bonds at Pac Bell Park, on Reggie Jackson becoming a legend. This collection represents Angell's best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002.
This big baseball book is for people who love the curious and the obscure. Filled with anecdotal references, there's plenty to enjoy and challenge the baseball mind. From foul balls that bounce off the batter to Minnesota's speakers, the trivia covers real-life events over the panoply of baseball from the 1960s to early 200s. Covering all the bases, the bats, the pitcher's mound, the infield, base runners, and the dugout; and even taking a look off the field and into the press box, the weird facts read like fiction, but all come with answers from baseball's arcane rulebook. If you've got baseball on the brain, this book will send you to a field of dreams.
Veeck As In Wreck by Bill Veeck, with Ed Linn (1962)
A Brand New Ballgame: Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck, Walter O'Malley and the Transformation of Baseball, 1945-1962 by G. Scott Thomas (2021)
Baseball's Best Short Stories compiled by Paul D. Staudohar (1995)
Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (2003)
The Big Book of Baseball Brainteasers by Author (date)
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