I'm looking to read a few baseball books and was looking for books that you all enjoyed and/or learned a lot from. I want to learn about Sabermetrics and am interested in Bill James' work, what books do you all recommend from him?
Thanks!
I'm looking to read a few baseball books and was looking for books that you all enjoyed and/or learned a lot from. I want to learn about Sabermetrics and am interested in Bill James' work, what books do you all recommend from him?
Thanks!
I know this isn't necessarily what you're looking for, but I found The Natural to be exceptional. Sorry I couldn't be more help with the Bill James/ Sabermetrics angle.
http://www-math.bgsu.edu/~albert/papers/saber.html
look at the reference list at the end.
http://saberlibrary.com/
Seek out Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Also, check out the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract and this year's Bill James Gold Mine.
Ball Four by Jim Bouton is a great read. i second Moneyball also.
Juiced By Jose Canseco is a good read simply because of how publicized it initially was and because the book is written in a much different manner than was publicly portrayed.
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The Mickey Mantle auto-bio was a pretty good read.
THere's an interesting book about Liriano's rise through the minors and his unfortunate teammate who went the other way. Easy read called THrowing Bullets.
'Ty Cobb' by Charles Alexander if you can find it.
A great introduction to SABR type baseball thinking is Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About The Game Is Wrong.
James just put out his latest book. Go for that one if you're interested in current players and James' current train of thought. Find it on his website.
Agree with the Moneyball recommendation. One of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time. I just started another baseball book today called The Eastern Stars, How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris. Not really the sabermatric angle you are looking for but so far it is an enjoyable read. Easy to understand why the Dominican has so many good major league baseball players. Forgot to mention, that Cueto is from this town.
Last edited by kfm; 05-08-2010 at 11:04 PM.
I'd agree with "moneyball" if I hadn't read Bill James write the same thing 20 years earlier. If you can find (and it's hard) any of the "70's versions" of his baseball analysis books, it's great reading, but you've got to love stats and analysis.
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