It was supposed to be 50, but I didn't get there, I only got to 40. Here's the list:
- jon miller: confessions of a baseball purist
- alan schwarz: the numbers game
- michael seidel: streak: joe dimaggio and the summer of '41
- eliot asinof: eight men out
- lawrence ritter: the glory of their times
- bette bao lord: in the year of the boar and jackie robinson
- robert mayer: notes of a baseball dreamer
- roger angell: five seasons
- david halberstam: summer of '49
- bill gilbert: they also served: baseball and the home front, 1941-45
- nick peters: tales from the giants dugout
- david halberstam: october 1964
- susan dellinger: red legs and black sox: edd roush and the untold story of the 1919 world series
- steve fiffer: how to watch baseball
- frank deford: the old ball game: how john mcgraw, christy mathewson, and the new york giants created modern baseball
- howard bryant: juicing the game
- louis masur: autumn glory: baseball's first world series
- jean hastings ardell: breaking into baseball
- buzz bissinger: three nights in august
- eldon ham: larceny and old leather: the mischievous legacy of major league baseball
- josh suchon: this gracious season: barry bonds and the greatest year in baseball
- charles einstein: willie's time
- george will: men at work
- michael coffey: 27 men out: baseball's perfect games
- paul dickson: the hidden language of baseball
- thomas oliphaunt: praying for gil hodges
- jim klobuchar: high and inside
- allen barra: brushbacks and knockdowns
- david a. nathan: saying it's so: a cultural history of the black sox scandal
- joe morgan: long balls, no strikes: what baseball must do to keep the good times rolling
- robert peterson: only the ball was white: a hstory of legendary black players and all-black professional teams
- jim bouton: ball four
- roger kahn: the head game: baseball seen from the pitcher's mound
- matt johnson: giants: where have you gone?
- curt smith: the storytellers: from mel allen to bob costas, sixty years of baseball tales from the broadcast booth
- john schulian: twilight of the long-ball gods: dispatches from the disappearing heart of baseball
- roger kahn: the boys of summer
- phillip hoose: perfect, once removed
- charles c. alexander: breaking the slump: baseball in the depression era
People keep saying, "I didn't know there WERE 40 (50) baseball books in the world!" And I tell them that what I've found out, as you guys all know, is that even if I read nothing but baseball books from now until I died at a ripe healthy old age, I still wouldn't read all the baseball books there are in the world.
Not only that, but there's at least two or three new baseball books released every month. So I doubt I'll ever catch up and that's fine.
I'll end this rambling thing here. It's been a very good year.