Baseball Hacks

Baseball Books

Here are a few of my favorite books on baseball:

Baseball Prospectus (Workman Publishing Company)

Every year, these guys put out a giant book of forecasts, commentary, and essays on baseball. It’s replaced Bill James’ baseball abstracts as the best source for insightful commentary on baseball, and it’s a fun read. (How could you not like a baseball book that references the Simpsons?)

Total Baseball (SportClassic Books)

If you have Luddite friends who want a gigantic, hardbound, phonebook-size reference book on baseball statistics, this is the one you should recommend. It was produced with help from Pete Palmer and John Thorn, two of the best baseball thinkers, and it includes some modern sabermetric measurements (mostly from linear weights). Even if you don’t care about the vast collection of printed statistics, it is worth buying for the essays.

Nine Innings (Houghton Mifflin)

Daniel Okrent is famous (infamous?) for creating and popularizing Rotisserie baseball. He also wrote this wonderful book describing a single baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Baltimore Orioles in 1982. This is one of the best stories ever written about the game.

The Hidden Game of Baseball (Doubleday)

This is one of the greatest books ever written about baseball, by the creators of modern baseball analysis. Unfortunately, this book is out of print, so you will probably be stuck searching your library or buying a used copy. Because there’s still a lot of demand for this book, used ...