What's the title of your favorite all-time book about baseball?

Two of my favorite things in the whole wide world are baseball and books, so it should go without saying that I enjoy reading books about baseball. I’ve read many such books over the years, and this week I figured I’d run down a few of my favorites.

One of my all-time favorites is “The Boys of Summer” by Roger Kahn. This book is generally considered to be one of the finest baseball books ever written, and it’s mostly about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s, before the team moved to Los Angeles. Much of this book is also about Jackie Robinson and the trials he faced while breaking the “color barrier” of Major League Baseball.

If you’re looking for a great, funny baseball book, I highly recommend “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton. Bouton was a Big League pitcher in the 1960s and when his career ended, he wrote “Ball Four” as a tell-all-type book about his experiences in the Majors. This book caused a huge scandal when it was released in 1970 because it contains more than a few wild tales about some well-known baseball players.

Another great baseball book is “The Code” by Ross Bernstein, which examines baseball’s unwritten rules and traditions. This book goes into great detail about how Major League teams and players police their own game. You’ll never watch a game the same way again after reading this book.

Perhaps the greatest baseball novel ever written is “The Natural” by Bernard Malamud. Most of you have probably seen the motion picture version of this story, which featured Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, a baseball star whose career is derailed by a woman who shoots him in a hotel room. It’s often said that the book is better than the movie, and that’s definitely true when it comes to “The Natural.”

If you want to read about the seedier side of professional baseball, I recommend “Game of Shadows” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, a pair of San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters who blew the lid off the Barry Bonds steroid scandal. This book takes an in-depth look at the world of performance enhancing drugs and the lengths that professional athletes will go to gain an edge. This book had a huge impact on pulling Major League Baseball out of the “Steroid Era” and is likely the condemning document that will keep Bonds and others out of the Hall of Fame.

Every youth and high school player in the reading audience needs to read “The Science of Hitting” by Ted Williams and John Underwood. Williams, aka “The Splendid Splinter,” was the last Major League player to hit over .400, and this book is his how-to book on how to hit a baseball at the highest level. I read this book about 10 years ago, but I wish that I’d read it when I was about 13, so I could have applied some of its lessons.

Last, but not least, if you don’t want to read any of the books mentioned above, check out “501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die” by Ron Kaplan. As the title implies, this book contains descriptions of over 500 of the greatest baseball books ever published and it’s sure to contain a little something for every baseball fan.