Someone I was surprised to discover has authored a baseball book is American actress
Alyssa Milano. A long time baseball fan, her recently released
Safe At Home: confessions of a baseball fanatic is actually a book that fans and non-fans (of Milano and baseball come to think of it) could enjoy. Described as a memoir of Milano’s passion for the game, the publisher says the book gives “a fan’s perspective on the heart-ache, headache, and joy that make every baseball season worth following. From arguing about the importance of baseball history to appreciating the quiet months of the off-season to criticizing Major League Baseball’s response to the steroid scandal…”
Milano is a Dodger’s fan and probably not too excited about this year’s World Series lineup. American novelist Jane Heller, however, is a Yankee’s fan through and
A little older than those titles is Roger
Kahn’s 1972
The Boys of Summer, which follows his love of baseball, and his years covering the Brooklyn Dodgers as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. Considered a classic of baseball writing, it was recently re-released by Harper Perennial Classics.
I’ll finish off with a book I’ve flipped through a bunch of times over the last few years, because it
takes a look at something that’s always fascinated and frustrated me about modern sports – the endless supply of stats that are thrown at you when you watch a sports event. Curve Ball: baseball, statistics, and the role of chance in the game is written by scientists, mathematicians
and Phillies fans Jim Albert and Jay Bennett – I’m sure the authors will be watching the upcoming games and jotting down a few numbers.