The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz

I wish I had a better love for history.
My college roommate was a history major and loved the stuff. He understood it, thrived in learning more about it, and was able to process all the events he learned about in a way that gave him a maplike understanding of the past.
The Numbers Game is a [...]

Carrying Jackie’s Torch by Steve Jacobsen

“Little tiles make up the big picture.”
So is the quote from former major leaguer Bob Watson that best describes Steve Jacobson’s new book, Carrying Jackie’s Torch.
The 250 pages of the book, comprised of stories from African-American major leaguers not named Jackie Robinson piece together to form a painful reminder of how “all men are created [...]

In the Ballpark: The Working Lives of Baseball People by George Gmelch and J.J. Weiner

While they don’t go unnoticed, the people who work in and around baseball often go unthought of — the beer guy, the scorekeeper, the usher who shows you to your seat. They seem to be there, doing their job, game in and game out, and unfortunately most of us never give them a second thought.
However, [...]