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Baseball team and player performance examined realistically and accurately.
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Selected Baseball Books
“No furniture so charming as books.”
– A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith,
Lady Holland
The books listed below are a few that seem to stand out from the crowd, but you should not think that omission of a title here means we don’t like it. We are human, and can only read so many things, and of those, here are the ones that endured.
Some of these titles are, as you might expect, oriented toward analysis and analytic measures. But there are others that are important for anyone who wants to understand the game as a whole; and, besides being informative, they are interesting and pleasant reading. Have at!
(As noted elsewhere on this site, we are an AbeBooks affiliate, and the links below are to AbeBooks listings for the books, which will include used and, where available, new copies.).
2024 Baseball Prospectus;
bythe staff of The Baseball Prospectus The only word for this annual is “invaluable”—well, maybe also “essential”.
(Note: search includes both hardcover and softcover editions.)
The Numbers Game;
byAlan Schwarz A fine history of the attempts to analyze baseball with numbers, which culminated in modern analytic methods.
The Sabermetric Revolution: Assessing the Growth of Analytics in Baseball;
byAndrew Zimbalist and Benjamin Bauer From the author of Baseball and Billions (see farther below) comes this work, not yet read here, but widely discussed and usually praised. Somewhat controversial is the book’s extensive criticism of Moneyball (see farther below) as inaccurate and misleading.
A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics;
byAnthony Castrovince Subtitled “Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball” Readers seem to like it a lot; it’s probably somewhat elementary, but arguably a good starting point for beginners.
Percentage Baseball;
byEarnshaw Cook Arguably the book that started the whole stats-analysis revolution. Turgid reading, but utterly brilliant work. A lot of what he said in 1963 remains sound today. (Now somewhat scarce and expensive.)
Percentage Baseball and the Computer;
byEarnshaw Cook A follow-up to the book just above, wherein Cook tunes his theoretical work with the power just then becoming available for rapid mass computing. (Scaarce and usually—but not always—expensive.)
The Physics of Baseball (3rd edition);
byRobert K. Adair Professor Adair, Sterling Professor of Physics at Yale, was for some years “Physicist to the National League”. This book is absolutely vital to anyone who wants to know the true workings of baseball.
The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball’s Drug Problems;
byWill Carroll A clarifying book by the author of the Baseball Prospectus on-line feature “Under the Knife”.
(Note: search includes both hardcover and softcover editions.)
Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game;
byMichael Lewis An insight into how a highly analysis-minded major-league organization carries on the business of baseball, though in some ways, a bit misleading. (See The Sabermetric Revolution, above.)
(Note: search includes both hardcover and softcover editions.)
Ball Four Plus Ball Five;
byJim Bouton A “tell-all” reminiscence of the game by an outspoken (and literate) former player of note (updated edition).
(Note: search includes both hardcover and softcover editions.)
The Sinister First Baseman;
byEric Walker A collection of essays by the man described by George F. Will, writing in The New York Times, as “the most important baseball thinker you have never heard of.” Sad to say, now expensive.
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