Baseball season is upon us. I recommend the following:

Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss. Roberto Clemente died young, but he packed a lot into his short time on Earth. Fascinating, admirable man.

The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter. Maybe the best baseball book out there. From the Amazon blurb, "Shortly after the death of legendary baseball player Ty Cobb in 1961, Ritter, armed with a portable tape recorder, attempted to obtain an oral history of early-20th-century baseball from Cobb's contemporaries. " The book has first hand accounts from the men who played the game.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. The story of how A's manager Billy Bean continues to win despite such a low budget. Neck and neck with The Glory of Their Times for first place on my list of great baseball books.

Weaver on Strategy: Classic Work on Art of Managing a Baseball Team by Terry Pluto and Earl Weaver. What Billy Bean figured out with computers and Ivy League trained assistants, Earl Weaver figured out on his own. This enjoyable book is sort of a predecessor to Moneyball.

That's my list.