Free Baseball Books on the Internet

The setting: it's spring, and the growl of the lawn mower echoes over the quaint suburban horizon. You've finished checking the gutters, the game is on in an hour, and the breeze is decidedly pleasant. You find yourself in need of a glass of lemonade, a shady spot under the cherry tree you climbed a thousand times in your childhood, and a nice book. This post is designed to supply you with one of these things.

Certainly, in this chrome-gilded age you could go to Amazon or ride your Vespa to the local Barnes & Noble to procure your literature, but I present an inexpensive, somewhat circuitous alternative. That choice is Bookmooch, a six year-old book exchange community that allows users to trade books online, free of charge (postage extra). This charming little Ponzi scheme allows each user to upload a list of books that they agree to mail to those who want them, and request the books of others in their place. This is noble! The only trouble is that every book is treated equally in the eyes of Bookmooch, contrary to the wisdom of Dorothy Parker. Thus, six years later, the website is swollen with the decaying remains of Dan Brown novels and dog-eared Louis L’Amour westerns. There was also one Roger Angell anthology, but I already claimed it.

But enough exposition. The purpose of this article is to provide you with a selection of Bookmooch’s current library of baseball literature, for your perusal and (perhaps) procurement. Today, we'll focus on the young adult genre. Among your choices:

Honus & Me (Dan Gutman): 2 copies available

Amazon Price: $0.01 used, $1.73 new

Tagline: "The first time I touched a baseball card, I felt a strange tingling sensation all over my body."

As one reviewer puts it: “This is a nice fiction story not as good but up in the ranks with ‘Field of Dreams’”. This is true in the sense that my writing is not as good but up in the ranks with Joe Posnanski. The story: an impoverished boy finds a way to travel through baseball cards into history, meets Honus Wagner, magically ages fifteen years and plays in the 1909 World Series. Probably, he learns a life lesson somehow. A perfect read for fans of baseball history and minor plot holes.

How Spider Saved the Baseball Game (Robert Kraus): 1 copy available

Amazon price: $0.01 used, $10.00 new

There is absolutely no record on the internet of how exactly Spider saved the baseball game, though our best guess is that he came in at the bottom of the ninth up by three. Meanwhile, there’s a lot going on in that picture: beyond using four legs to hold the bat, and sitting in the box, Spider is stunned by the admittedly heavy movement and poor location on that pitch. Even the catcher seems to be fooled.

Tartabull's Throw (Henry Garfield): 2 copies available

Amazon price: $0.08 used, $16.00 new

I assume that there is a certain subset of the American population who reads a book about baseball and thinks to themselves, "Sure, that was good, but there weren't nearly enough werewolves in it." Those who perhaps enjoyed Sparky Lyle's "Bronx Zoo" but felt it would have been improved if Billy Martin had eviscerated George Steinbrenner with his fangs, and then fell passionately in love with Marilyn Peterson. Reviews on Amazon are generally positive, and to Garfield's credit, when I scanned cursorily through the book on Amazon, I couldn't find a laughably bad line to quote.

The Kid Who Only Hit Homers (Matthew Christopher): 1 copy available

Amazon Price: $0.01 used, $4.99 new

Otherwise known as: The Adam Dunn story.