baseball history books

Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract

not a book but a pretty good reference: Ken Burns Baseball

Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract

-- Dr Morbius, Thursday, November 29, 2007 5:01 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i looked at this somewhere but it's not really arranged as a narrative/chronological history, right?

the body of it is chapters evaluating each decade, sequentially. Then there are analytical sections (best all-time players by position, etc)

Ken Burns' Baseball is a coffee table book also, btw. I own it and never look at it.

oh i must have just opened up to the analytical part ... alright, i'll check it out

Daniel Okrent's Ultimate Baseball Book was a favorite of mine as a kid.

For early old-timey baseball you can't do much better than this: http://www.amazon.com/Glory-Their-Times-Baseball-Played/dp/0688112730

That's true, but I thought he was asking for a broad history of 19th-21st centuries. There are others who like (Leonard) Koppett's Concise History of Baseball, last revised in 2004, which I just saw in a store for $7.

I missed this a couple weeks ago -- the great John Thorn, who has a new book on the early game, was appointed MLB's official historian.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110301&content_id=16777158&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

If you want to vote on the 25 most important people in baseball history:

http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2014/09/22/vote-25-important-people-baseball-history/

My list:

Al Spalding
Babe Ruth
Barry Bonds
Bill James
Branch Rickey
Casey Stengel
Curt Flood
Dr. Frank Jobe
Earl Weaver
George Steinbrenner
Hank Aaron
Jackie Robinson
Jim Bouton
Joe DiMaggio
John McGraw
Josh Gibson
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Leo Durocher
Marin Miller
Roberto Clemente
Ted Williams
Ty Cobb
Walter Johnson
Walter O’Malley
Willie Mays

I'm half-kidding, half-serious with the Bouton vote.

Results for the poll above:

http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2014/11/10/25-important-people-baseball-history/