Shoeless Joe – W.P. Kinsella Box Socials – W.P. Kinsella Ray Kinsella's fanatic love of drives him to A homegrown hero faces a baseball showdown with build a baseball stadium in his corn field and kidnap a legendary player in a novel that takes readers B A S E B A L L the author, J.D. Salinger, and bring him to a baseball through the small towns, ball fields, barns, and game. bedrooms of 1940s Canada. F I C T I O N The Natural – Bernard Malamud Wild Pitch – Mike Lupica This sports novel follows the career of baseball Washed-out Charlie Stoddard is called back player Roy Hobbs, a natural with a bat whose to the majors after the Red Sox lose two starting dreams of playing in the big leagues are deferred by , but he hopes to turn around his personal a youthful indiscretion, but who finally becomes a life as well--a much more difficult challenge. hero. It Happened in Wisconsin – Ken Moraff The End of Baseball – Peter Schilling, Jr. Reflecting on his time as a pitcher with the Racine After returning from Gaudalcanal in 1944 with a Robins, a baseball team traveling the Midwest raising missing leg and no money, Bill Veeck manages to funds for struggling communities, the narrator hustle his way into buying the Philadelphia Athletics recounts an April snowstorm that stranded them in and recruites players from the Negro Leagues to Wisconsin. create the greatest team in baseball history. Blockade Billy – Stephen King The Might-Have-Been – Joseph M. Schuster A retired recounts the story of "Blockade Hoping to achieve a lifelong goal when he is called Billy" Blakely, known for his skills as a and up to the major leagues after ten years in the also as a formidable batter, the only player to have minors, Edward Everett Yates makes a risky play his record erased from baseball history, and his time that results in a devastating injury and is unable to with the New Jersey Titans. America’s national pastime is front pursue a life without baseball as the years progress. and center in these novels, which Snow in August – Pete Hamill MORE BASEBALL NOVELS: deal with issues covering the sport’s

Michael Devlin, an 11-year-old Irish American, Be the One – April Smith history. From its beginnings in the meets Rabbi Hirsch, and in return for teaching the Oh, Johnny – Jim Lehrer 19th Century through the Black Sox rabbi about baseball and English, the rabbi teaches Michael Yiddish and tells him about Prague, until an Perfect Silence – Jeff Hutton scandal and into the Free Agency Irish gang becomes violent in its anti-Semitism. Era, these titles will give you Double Play – Robert B. Parker something to cheer about while In 1947, as Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn waiting for “next year.” Dodgers, Joseph Burke, a World War II veteran and survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Dodgers Created by your Branch Rickey to be Robinson's bodyguard. Twin Falls Public Annotations are courtesy of NoveList Plus, part Calico Joe – John Grisham Library Reference of the TFPL digital resources. Follows the divergent paths of a rookie hitter for Department. the Chicago Cubs and a hard-hitting Mets pitcher. 10/14 All the Stars Came out that Night – Kevin King The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson – Donald Honig Underworld – Don DeLillo A tale based on the 1934 World Series traces the Convinced that someone is trying to kill Jackie A novel that begins on October 3, 1951, at New machinations of legal genius Clarence Darrow to Robinson, just as he is about to make history and York's Polo Grounds, where the decisive game in bring about the Cardinals win, an achievement also break the color barrier in major league baseball, the race for the pennant between the legendary marked by the contributions of such figures as Babe sportswriter Joe Tinker begins an investigation of his Giants and Dodgers is taking place, the same day the Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Henry Ford. own. Soviet Union detonates an atom bomb.

Season of Gene – Dallas Hudgens The Man with Two Arms – Billy Lombardo The Sweetheart Season – Karen Joy Fowler His preference for a peaceful life shattered by the Henry Granville, who loves baseball, teaches his son In 1947, the bucolic mill town of Magrit, Minnesota, untimely death of a business partner, baseball lover Danny all about the game, and Danny turns out to confronts the terrible problem that none of its Joe Rice finds himself harassed about the be a baseball phenom. He makes it to the majors, young men want to return home, leaving the town's whereabouts of a valuable Babe Ruth bat by an ex- but the pressures of celebrity could ruin his life as girls romantically bereft, until the old mill owner mobster, an entrepreneur, and a gun-toting minister. well as his father's. forms a ball team and puts them on the road.

Slider – Patrick Robinson Spirits in the Grass – Bill Meissner The Housekeeper and the Professor – Yoko Ogawa Hotshot young college pitcher Jack Faber returns Luke helping build a new ball field and hoping to get A relationship blossoms between a brilliant math after a stint in a summer baseball league to find a a second chance in a local amateur league. But when professor suffering from short-term memory new baseball coach who resents his success, he finds bone shards in the turf, it appears that the problems following a traumatic head injury and the cockiness, and talent and who sets out to destroy field may be a Native American burial ground. young housekeeper, the mother of a ten-year-old Jack's confidence in himself and his pitching ability. son, hired to care for him. The Art of Fielding – Chad Harbach Rookie: A Novel – Jerry B. Jenkins A baseball star at a small college near Lake Michigan Nostalgia – Dennis McFarland When his father is sent to prison, nine-year-old Elgin launches a routine throw that goes disastrously off Leaving his schoolteacher sister and his baseball Woodell and his mother move to Chicago to live course and inadvertently changes the lives of five career to serve in the Civil War, young Summerfield with his grandmother, where he discovers his true people, including the college president, a gay Hayes struggles with secret feelings for his sister gift for baseball, and becomes a baseball legend at teammate, and the president's daughter. throughout grueling battlefield experiences and the age of fourteen. while seeking shelter and a sense of identity after A Difficult Trade – Sam Leonard being abandoned by his comrades. Forced Out: A Novel – Stephen Frey Baseball team owner Harry Hvide is stuck with a A baseball scout, a remarkable player with a secret, team that loses money every year, and it seems his The Setup Man – T.T. Monday and a Mafia hitman collide with violent and only chance of breaking even would involve getting Moonlighting as a private investigator to fund his unpredictable results. rid of Dick Johnson, a player with a 66 million dollar retirement, aging Major League pitcher Johnny contract and a no-trade clause. Adcock tackles the most dangerous case of his Bang the Drum Slowly – Mark Harris second career when a favor for a teammate with a A poignant portrayal of professional ballplayers' lives Play for A Kingdom – Thomas Dyja troubled marriage leads him into a deadly ring of on and off the field during the sport's golden years In May of 1864, a company of Union soldiers and a murder, pornography and Mexican cartels. in the 1950's. company of Confederates challenge each other to a series of baseball games in between bloody battles. Camp Ford – Johnny Boggs Diamond Ruby – Joseph Wallace When he is captured by the Rebels in Louisiana, In early twentieth century Brooklyn, Ruby endures Strike Zone – Jim Bouton Union soldier Win MacNaughton is sent to Camp many hardships including the flu epidemic, the death A baseball tale about Sam Ward, an aging minor Ford, Texas, the largest prison west of the of family members, and even starvation, until her league pitcher, who gets a chance to pitch in the Mississippi, where he and his fellow prisoners pitching talents open new opportunities in the majors, and Ernie Kolacka, an who has challenge the guards to a life-or-death game of changing world of sports for women. agreed to fix the game. baseball.