• Yankee Stadium: A Tribute: 85 Years of Memories: 1923-2008 by Les Krantz

A poignant and celebratory tribute to “The House That Ruth Built.” Yankee Stadium was the most famous stadiums and ballparks in professional sports and 2008 was its final year. They built a new one next door. This book commemorates the amazing moments that occurred there in the last 85 years, and they aren’t just famous and historic sports moments. The first 9/11 memorial service was held at the stadium. Yankee Stadium was home to some of the greatest achievements in sports history and this book documents them in a great collectible tribute piece.

• Ball Four

This is a behind-the-scenes tell-all book by the pitcher Jim Bouton written in the 70s. Back then, this was a groundbreaking piece as no one had ever discussed the dark side of baseball. He talked about the locker room and life on the road–and all it entailed: the women, the drugs, the alcohol and the racial tension in the teams in the emotionally charged 60s. The diary is based on the season he tried to make a come-back on his skills with knuckle-ball. Sarcastic, funny, and still better than the other tell-alls that have come since then.

• Unforgettable Season by G.H. Fleming and Lawrence S. Ritter

First, this book ranks in Sports Illustrated top 100 sports books of all time, that’s reason alone to check it out. It’s the tale of the 1908 season and the National League pennant race that pitted the Giants, Cubs and Pirates in a dead heat race. Fleming compiled newspapers from the time and edited them to recreate the season from a newspaper readers POV. Historically captivating and wildly entertaining.

• The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by Frank Deford

This one I saw in Borders on day and pointed it out to my boyfriend, who was shocked to find a baseball book he didn’t know about. He’s been reading it and said it’s really good. So if it sucks, blame him, not me! But it’s finally something that’s not based on the life of someone else. This one’s fiction! It’s the story of a big name player accused of rape but told by the manager that has to deal with it. It’s engaging and LOL funny. I haven’t read it yet but there was a quote already that made me spit my coffee on my computer. So put any drinks down now!  “He never really understood pitchers. They were different from hitters in that pitchers didn’t seem to Howie to be whole people. They were just one thing, an arm, attached to the corpus. Pitchers were sort of like ordinary girls who got by because they had big boobs.”

About the author: Jennifer Taglione is the owner of this fabulous website Stiletto Sports. Despite writing well over 500 posts, she still maintains that she is not a sports writer! She is however a huge fan of Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Mark Sanchez, the Celtics, and totally kicks butt on March Madness brackets! Connect with her by following her on Twitter @StilettoSportsJ and subscribing to her weekly newsletter. For more info check out the About the Editor page!

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