The Lineup: Ten Books That Changed Baseball

by Paul Aron

Focusing on the ten most influential baseball books of all time, this volume explores how these landmark works changed the game itself and made waves in American society at large. Satchel Paige's Pitchin' Man informed the dialog surrounding integration. Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al changed the way Americans viewed their baseball heroes and influenced the work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Bill James's Baseball Abstract transformed the way managers--including those in fields other than baseball--analyzed numbers. Pete Rose's My Story and My Prison Without Bars exposed and deepened a cultural divide that paved the way for Donald Trump.

Genres: Sports

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 13, 2022

About the author

Paul Aron is senior editor at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Previously he was a reporter for The Virginia Gazette and executive editor at Simon & Schuster.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys reading about baseball—fiction, nonfiction, statistical. The author summaries each of the ten books he considers changed baseball— not necessarily the ten “best” though some of the books cited can fall into both camps. Each essay includes noteworthy books in the same genre. Chapter 10 provides thumbnail summaries of many of the other books cited. This is a quick, informative read and will result in adding more books to your reading list.