The Boys of Summer
By Roger Kahn
Roger Kahn’s rich, nostalgic narrative of his life as a baseball fan and sportswriter, and the past and present lives of the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, is one of baseball’s most compelling stories.
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It
By Lawrence S. Ritter
This book, with its wonderful evocation of an almost lost baseball era through the memory of those who played and loved the game, set the standard for baseball oral histories.
Willie’s Time
By Charles Einstein
Charles Einstein’s memoir and biography of Willie Mays is the only baseball book nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It spans several decades of American history, from the fabulous ’50s through the civil rights struggles of the ’60s to the turbulent Vietnam War era.
You Know Me Al
By Ring Lardner
Rich in baseball vernacular, Ring Lardner’s stories about a bush leaguer named Jack Keefe gave American literature one of its most original characters since Huck Finn floated down the Mississippi.
Eight Men Out
By Eliot Asinof
This is the seminal work on baseball’s greatest scandal–the 1919 World Series Black Sox plot–and, with its rich detail and compelling story, one of baseball’s most impressive narratives.
The Natural
By Bernard Malamud
This book established that we could have a serious adult baseball novel by playing with the parallels between mythical elements in the game and mythical elements in literature.
