baseball: pawtucket red sox @ durham bulls

baseball: pawtucket red sox @ durham bulls, originally uploaded by minervacat.

I love the Carolina baseball team a whole damn lot, but not enough to sit in the rain on a Monday to watch Matt Harvey1 pitch in an intrasquad scrimmage, so instead, have a stray shot from the Bulls/Pawsox series this summer. That starting match-up from yesterday’s Angels/Red Sox game? I could have told you it turned out badly for Buchholz; we saw that shit back in June, when Kazmir was still rehabbing for the Rays.

A few weeks ago I finished a lazy re-read of Jim Collins’ The Last Best League, this weekend I read a book about Fresno State’s underdog run to the 2008 CWS title, and now I’m working on a biography of Satchel Paige; all these baseball books made me want to put together a list.  So, as follows, my five favorite books about baseball:

1. The Thrill of the Grass, W.P. Kinsella.  The only fiction on this list, and it’s not even Shoeless Joe.  Instead it’s a little known collection of baseball-related Kinsella short stories, most of which are excellent and two of which, the opening “The Last Pennant Before Armageddon” (which I used to quote from every time the Cubs failed) and the title story, are singularly perfect short stories.
2. The Last Best League, Jim Collins.  Collins follows three players from three very different college programs through a make-or-break summer, and it’s fascinating and a little sad.  (Do you want to be spoiled for their futures?  Tim Stauffer starts for the Padres; Jamie D’Antona flamed out of the Diamondbacks system and is playing in Japan; Thomas Pauly hasn’t pitched since 2007.)  If you don’t know much about college baseball or the way college players are scouted, it’s a great read.  Also features minor appearances by a few current major leaguers, including ex-UNC and current Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta and Tony Gwynn Jr.
3. Fantasyland, Sam Walker.  I’ve spent several enjoyable summers battling my way through the inevitable middle of the fantasy baseball league pack, and this is a story of the year Walker spent playing with Tout Wars, aka the most notorious rotosserie fantasy baseball league in the world.  Want to know why and how people can be more obsessed with a cobbled together team where Luke Scott’s their starting LF than a real team?  Read this.  (I wonder where my copy of this is.  Does my dad still have it?  Hmmmm.)
4. Ballpark: Camden Yards & the Building of an American Dream, Peter Richmond.  Our baseball team is bad and Baltimore will always be angry, but our stadium is a cathedral.
5. Moneyball, Michael Lewis.  Oh, come on, it’s a list of baseball books.  You thought this wouldn’t be on it?

I am, in fact, always a sucker for baseball books; these are my five favorites, but if you want to see almost everything baseball-related I’ve enjoyed (and sometimes not enjoyed), check this list out.

I’m rooting for the Yankees in the playoffs, which appalls a great number of people, I know. But my late paternal grandfather, who passed away in July, was a lifelong Yankees fan — 70+ years of fandom. I’d like to see them win one more for my Papou.

1: i am going to start inserting random footnotes about matt harvey into my posts occasionally over the winter, to prepare me mentally for when i am forced, next spring, to unironically say, “matt harvey is our ace.” matt harvey throws harder than most of the other pitchers i’ve seen at carolina, not including daniel bard or alex white when he was really smoking but almost everyone else, even andrew miller, but he is also an idiotchild headcase, and given that we are replacing half our starting lineup in the field, 2/3rds of our offensive production at bat (the returning half of the starters aren’t exactly, ah, offensive powerhouses), and 2/3rds of our weekend rotation this year, the phrase “matt harvey is our ace” gives me the creeps, not confidence. so. i have to practice.

matt harvey is our ace. jesus god.

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