Recommended Reads, Sixth in a Series

Stuff I'd recommend from the past few months:

The Card (O'Keeffe/Thompson). The story of mintiest known version of the famous Honus Wagner tobacco card has it all: celebs, allegations, and big, big money.

The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven (Skirboll) - I followed baseball in the '80's but did not realize just how prevalent cocaine use was at the time. This was a sad book on so many levels.

Six Good Innings (Kreider) - Thankfully, I went from millionaire coke addicts to pre-teens in Toms River. This was a fun read, and (spoiler alert) it seemed even more innocent that these kids ended up not winning it all.

Batting Stance Guy (Ryness). What baseball fan didn't imitate Rickey Henderson or make fun of Kevin Youkilis? But Batting Stance Guy can do them all, and has turned this skill into a YouTube channel and a book.

Birth of the Modern (Johnson) - An entertaining argument that 1815 to 1830 kicked off the modern era. At over 1,000 pages, that's about a page for every week! But there was a lot to talk about, like America and Britain making peace, huge transportation innovations, and the rise of global finance.

The Soul of Baseball (Posnanski). Buck O’Neill is what’s good about baseball and America. Hanging out with old Buck will make you laugh and cry.

Three Nights in August (Bissinger). Bissinger, the story-teller. LaRussa, the tactician. A three-game series. As you can imagine, this is a quality read.