Most collectors focus their collection on personal preference of enjoyment. Items surrounding; specific teams, or players, autographs, equipment, cards or general items associated with childhood memories. The one common denominator with all collections is a library of books related to baseball. Here's a look at some books of interest for your library. 

  The Merriwell Series of Dime Novels were published by Street & Smith from 1896 through 1930. The stories about Frank, and Dick Merriwell, were Witten by Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish.

 Published in 1906 the cover for Series No. 136, "Dick Merriwell's Dare" illustrates an Umpire and a catcher wearing reeded shin guards, suggesting that this copy was issued at a later date. Shin guards were devised in 1907 by Hall of Fame Catcher Roger Bresnahan.

 By 1909 the design was refined, and became accepted, and more wildly used. The Merriwell Series of books were always in print, and the original cover was updated with a more modern look.
 
 "Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero" by Frank Graham was published in 1942 by G.P. Putnam's Sons. The dust jacket for the 250 page hardcover book pictured "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig in the baggy Columbia University uniform of the era in a classic pose.

 This is a true story of one of the most famous of the Yankee baseball players of the last two decades who died at the age of thirty-eight. The title is literally true, for Lou was indeed a quite hero, never showing off, never pretending to be anything he wasn't, shy about his abilities.

 "Lou Gehrig a Biography by Frank Graham" was also published in a soft cover "pocket-size" paperback, which was issued to GI's from 1943-1947. The GI's would read, and passed around, the popular Armed Service Editions (ASEs) given out free to troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific during WWII. This issue illustrated the G.P. Putnam's Sons dust jacket.

 "Lucky to Be a Yankee" By Joe DiMaggio was published by Rudoplh Field in 1946. The book is a running account of Joe's boyhood and his ventures in major league baseball; with anecdotes about many of the sports leading figures, and advice by Joe himself on how to hold a bat, hit a ball, and covering the outfield positions.

 In 1949, Bantam Books published "Lucky To Be A Yankee" by Joe DiMaggio in paperback, with cover illustration by Hy Rubin showing "Joltin’ Joe’s" classic swing. Grosset & Dunlop published the book in 1951 for their Big League Baseball Library series of books.

 Published by Doubleday & Company in 1954, "The Mutual Baseball Almanac" was edited by Roger Kahn; baseball writer for the New York Herald Tribune, and Al Helfer, Sports announcer for Mutual Broadcasting's "Game Of The Day." The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American commercial radio network.

 The Mutual Baseball Almanac" contains; statistics, records, a series of essays by the games biggest stars, diagrams of seating arrangements, and field dimensions of all 16 major league ballparks. The book also provides

 1954 team rosters, 1954 major league schedules, complete official 1953 major league records and official all-time major league records. The cover, both front and back, has 12 facsimile autographs of the authors that provided essays for Tips On Watching Baseball.

  "My Life in Baseball - The True Record" by Ty Cobb with Al Stump was published by Doubleday & Company in 1961. This is his story - the true story - filled with all the excitement that surrounded Ty Cobb throughout his long and brilliant career.

 In 1959, Al Stump, a West Coast sportswriter, got a surprise phone call that was to change his life. The caller wanted to know if he'd be interested in working on the autobiography of Ty Cobb, the first player voted into baseball's Hall of Fame. Stump knew that Cobb, who was indeed the caller had a reputation for being difficult,

 and working on his life story would not be a walk through spring training, but he took the assignment. Cobb died in 1961, and 32 years after Cobb's death, in 1994, the movie Cobb staring Tommy Lee Jones came out.

The first & second editions of; "The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It" was published by The Macmillan Company, in 1966. The book by Lawrence S. Ritter, is about all of the baseball greats of the early 20th century, told in their own words.

 As Ritter puts it "This book was really not 'written' at all. It was spoken. My role was strictly that of a catalyst, audience and chronicler. I asked and listened, and the tape recorder did the rest. This is the way it was. Listen!"

Widely acclaimed as one of the great books written about baseball it features over 90 photographs, some from players' personal albums. "The Glory of Their Times" recalls the days of Cobb, Ruth, Johnson, McGraw-in old timers' personal reminiscences.
 
"The Baseball Encyclopedia" is a baseball reference book was published by The Macmillan Company in 1969. Nine further editions of the book were released between 1974 and 1996. Endorsed by Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn as "baseball's finest and most complete record book." The encyclopedia was Baseball's first computer-accurate record book. Seven times more data than any other baseball book, computer-authenticated, costing $1.5 million and over 3 1/2 years of research to produce.

 in a 1969 promotion, when you purchased "The Baseball Encyclopedia" direct from the publisher for $25.00, you received a free copy of "The Glory of Their Times" that sold for $7.95.

This is the book that started it all. "The Hidden Game of Baseball" by John Thorn, and Pete Palmer with David Reuther, is the title that introduced America to what would soon be called sabermetrics. Long before Moneyball became a sensation, this book was Published in 1984 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

With extensive lists of single-season and all-time leaders in the new statistics going back to 1876, charts, graphs and mathematical formulas, this book brings to light such arguments as; What Babe Rut would hit today; what Tony Gwynn would have hit in 1920.

What would have happened if Joe DiMaggio played in Fenway Park, and Ted Williams in Yankee Stadium, and much more. In this book, American sports statistician Pete Palmer lays out his revolutionary vision as to how baseball statistics could be better interpreted and prioritized.

"Baseball An Illustrated History" by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns is the companion book to the Ken Burns PBS series about baseball. This large 9 by 11 inch coffee table book features more than 500 historic photos. An illustration documentation of the history of baseball and it's effect on the American way of life.

A history that goes beyond stolen bases, triple plays, and home runs to demonstrate how baseball has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced our national life: race, labor, and social custom...

 The dust jacket, pictures a civil war era baseball team. The back pictures; Willie Mays diving into home plate, Jackie Robinson, and Don Gutteridge sliding into home plate, AAGPBL Vivian Kellog reaching for the ball, Marg Callaghan slides into home plate as umpire Norris Ward watches.

Pairing their detailed, informative research with a sophisticated anecdotal approach, Joel Zoss and John Bowman have written a fascinating, original, literate, and concise compendium of the history and issues surrounding America's national pastime.

 Addressed are such diverse topics as the origins of the game, the contributions of minorities and women, the evolution of umpiring, baseball's influence on literature and music, substance abuse, on- and off-field tragedy, and the game's international presence. Diamonds in the Rough is an invaluable and stimulating resource both for

 those who already study the game and for those who would like to learn its revealing history.

Published by Triumph Books in 2007; "Baseball Eccentrics: A Definitive Look at the Most Entertaining, Outrageous and Unforgettable Characters in the Game" was written by Bill "Spaceman" Lee, with Jim Prime.

 Baseballs Eccentrics is a celebration of the characters who have graced the game over the years, as told by one of the biggest of them all. Bill Lee also decries the scarcity of interesting personalities in today's game and examines some of the root causes for this lack of spontaneity. His hilarious collection is also a call to today's players to loosen up and have some fun.

 "Before and After Babe Ruth: A Story of the New York Yankees Told Through the Lens of Tickets and Passes" -by Dan Busby. Published by Foundation for Baseball in 2018, this book is different than any book previously written about the Yankees because it thoroughly documents the tickets and passes used by the team from 1903 to 1951.

 There are many photos and images of other Yankee memorabilia with the narrative of the Yankees history artfully woven together. But it is the preservation of the images of the tickets and the passes together with the association of undated ticket with the year they were used that makes this book standout from other Yankee books.

 What stands out the most to me is the book features a 100 page section from my KeyMan Collectibles: Stadium & Grandstand Admission Ticket Stub Dating Guide.

The New York Yankees Home Game Schedule, Stadium-Grandstand-Bleachers Ticket Dating Guide; is a year by year list of home games played at Yankee Stadium for the purpose of properly attributing a Grandstand or Bleacher ticket Game No. to the game played. The list features scheduled games, double headers, rainouts, and make up games. Each page includes games of note, player milestones, records, and historic game events for that year.

  Authored by Tim Wolter, and published by McFarland & Company, "POW Baseball In WWII :The National Pastime Behind Barbed Wire;" is the story of POW baseball, complete with guard versus prisoner ball games, radio parts hidden in baseballs, and future major leaguers. The book is divided into the various prison camps and describes the types of prisoners held there and the degree to which baseball was played.

 Nearly 130,000 American soldiers and 19,000 American civilians were captured by the enemy during the Second World War. The conditions under which they were held varied enormously but baseball, in various forms, was a common activity among these prisoners of war. Not just Americans, but Canadians, British, Australians and New Zealanders took the field, as well as the Japanese and even a few Germans.