Kudos to Paul Aron and the decision to name his newest project The Lineup: Ten Books That Changed Baseball. No superlatives, no grandiose claims, but a much more modest approach. And, indeed, these are books that not only changed the sport, but in some cases — as Aron explains both within the pages and our conversation — some extended to American culture in general. Certainly Jim Bouton’s Ball Four had an impact in how celebrity memoirs became more lurid, each seemingly trying to top predecessors in terms of shock value. Bernard Malamud’s The Natural took baseball fiction out of the exclusive realm of young readers. And for a political wonk like me, comparing two Pete Rose-penned books to the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s ascendency is, upon reflection, spot on.
I’m not going to go through each of the ten titles here. Better you should get if from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
Aron is also the author of Did Babe Ruth Call His Shot?: And Other Unsolved Mysteries of Baseball (2005) as well as other non-baseball titles.
is available on Amazon.com,
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