I can't get enough of them. I've read Boomer's Perfect, I'm Not and Joe Torre's Chasing the Dream too many times to count. Right now I'm plowing through Keith Hernandez's Inside Baseball, an obsessively detailed account of two games from 1993: Braves vs. Phillies and Tigers vs. Yankees. The info Keith includes is truly fetishistic: He analyses every pitch, but will takes a two-page diversion about the specifics of the hit-and-run. I can't get enough of it.

I recently read Moneyball (which I wrote about in another thread) and Me and My Dad by Paul O'Neill. A friend is gonna lend me the Dave Pallone book (after his huzzie is through with it), and eventually I'm gonna hit the central office for the Queens library to check out Going the Other Way and John Kruk's memoir.

The only baseball book I didn't finish was one call Nine Innings, an account of a single game from, I think, the Orioles and Brewers, from 1983. The writing lacked personality, and I didn't know most of the players featured.

So, am I missing any good ones? Is the one about Sandy Koufax worth a look? What are some of y'alls favorites?

Get Ball Four by Jim Bouton. A *huge* scandal at the time because it showed that players weren't the saints they were made out to be. You will never think of the word "beaver" in the same way again.

Two of the best bios are by Robert W. Creamer: Babe and Stengel (guess who the subjects are).

Lawrence Ritter, who just died, wrote the definitive interview book with stars of the "deadball" era, The Glory of Their Times. (You can even buy the tapes on CD now.)

Roger Angell's anthologies of his New Yorker baseball reportage are worthwhile (especially if you grew up in the '70s or '80s).

I'm reading a fascinating history of Cuban ball (which has an organized history dating back to the 1870s!), The Pride of Havana by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria.

And the best-selling (and best) annual of analysis is Baseball Prospectus, hitting bookstores now.

FeverDog, did you read David Cone's autobiography? "A Pitcher's Story." I didn't read it but I loved David Cone and his story. Sorry to see him retire but I guess it was his time. If you read it, let me know what you think.

Ooooh, I didn't know he had one!

The online database for the county library here reveals that my local branch doesn't carry it, but I can always hop on a train to another one. Maybe I'll check it out this weekend. I'll let you know. I am curious to see if Cone's infamous bullpen wank is mentioned.

It's not an autobiography, though; it was written by Roger Angell.

And Ball Four sounds good. I've added it to my list.

This thread got me thinking back to a book I read back in the mid-80s when I was a kid. The baseball section of the library was always my favorite place to hang out back then. Anyways, the book is called A Baseball Winter and is basically a behind the scenes chronicle of what goes on during an off-season for 5 teams. It may be a bit dated today, but at the time, I thought it was pretty fascinating. Anyways, here's a link to it on Amazon.com.