Books with a baseball theme

bleudog · May 28, 2009, 04:55:18 pm

A coworker loaned me a copy of Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Format is a little different. It's basically a collection of letters written among the characters during the early 1940s. The primary characters are a preteen Jewish kid growing up in a non-Jewish New York neighborhood whose father has abandon him and a fictional baseball player he latches on to as a surrogate big brother/father.

The kid character alone is worth the read.

It does have a little rough language.

http://www.stevekluger.com/LASTDAYS.html

Chief_Osceola™ · May 28, 2009, 05:06:58 pm

Eight Men Out was a great baseball book.

SandLizard04 · May 28, 2009, 09:19:32 pm

SMC and RHS will surely chime in with Moneyball soon.

I have Kirk's copy now and hope to read it soon.

CatsRule · June 07, 2009, 10:45:49 am

The Brother's K by David James Duncan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_K

"The Brothers K is a 1992 novel by David James Duncan an author, fisherman and environmental advocate from the Pacific Northwest. It builds on the sporting and spiritual themes of The River Why (novel), Duncan's first book, but on a much larger canvas, focusing on an entire family instead of a single protagonist. Duncan uses multiple points of view to reinforce this effect by including material supposedly written by different family members in the broad narrative by Kincaid Chance. The novel tells the story of the Chance family as they pass through the turbulent waters of Papa Chance's minor league baseball career and the upheavals of the Vietnam War. It is also a deeply religious novel about love and family and spiritual growth and the difference between church and religion. The title is clearly a reference to Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and to the baseball abbreviation for a strike-out."

parpar · June 25, 2009, 01:12:39 pm

"Wait Until Next Year" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Not just a baseball book, but a book on how the following of one team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, defined a family and its relationships. Goodwin is a great presidential historian, appears often on news shows like Meet the Press, and one of the smartest people I have ever heard talk. When I found out she was a baseball fan, I respected her even more. Great read, particularly for baby boomers, as many of the stories should hit home.