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By Vick Mickunas, Contributing Writer 3:47 PM Friday, October 16, 2009

Baseball fans are accustomed to feast or famine. From April through October we have all that baseball. Then when the World Series is over we are plunged into the darkness again — a world without baseball until the spring. Fortunately, there are baseball books to help us get through this dark time. Here are some recent printed gems of the diamond:

“The Machine” by Joe Posnaski (William Morrow, 302 pages, $25.99).

Fans of the Cincinnati Reds have suffered more than most lately. While rooting for the Reds isn’t quite as painful as being a Cubs fan, this has been a stretch lacking much to cheer. Fortunately, there are some wonderful memories to savor.

Posnaski has written a marvelous history of one those great Reds squads, the 1975 club that won 108 games then earned a nail-biting World Series triumph over the Boston Red Sox. Sparky Anderson, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Cesar Geronimo, Ken Griffey, Joe Morgan, George Foster — these guys were the Big Red Machine.

“The First Fall Classic” by Mike Vaccaro (Doubleday, 290 pages, $26.95).

While the 1975 Reds/Red Sox World Series was certainly memorable, there have been many other legendary championship battles.

In 1912, the Boston Red Sox faced off against the New York Giants in an eight-game series that unfolded over nine days.

Five future Hall of Famers took part, and those were the days before television and mass media.

Eager fans rushed out to get the latest newspapers for the game results.

Baseball was truly America’s pastime then and the World Series that year was one of the greatest ever.

“The Original Curse” by Sean Deveney (McGraw-Hill, 242 pages, $24.95).

In seven short years it all came crashing down. That 1912 World Series was a high water mark in baseball history.

By 1919, the “Black Sox “ scandal had cast a pall on baseball as shameful as the steroids scandals of our era.

Sean Deveney, a reporter for The Sporting News, poses this fascinating question: “did the Cubs throw the 1918 World Series to Babe Ruth’s Red Sox and incite the “Black Sox” scandal?”

Deveney theorizes that the 1919 White Sox were not the first team to conspire with gamblers to fix the outcomes of games. He has uncovered shocking evidence that indicates that the Chicago Cubs might have done the very same thing the year before, but they got away with it.

“Ty Cobb — My Twenty Years in Baseball” by Ty Cobb (Dover, 131 pages, $8.95).

Ty Cobb was one of the greatest hitters of all time, but the Detroit Tigers star was a temperamental chap; he was known for spiking opponents when he stole bases. He once was suspended for attacking a fan who was heckling him.

In 1925, he wrote this autobiography. It was not ghost written — these are Cobb’s own words. Cobb offers amazing reflections about the game and his part in it.

Contact book reviewer Vick Mickunas at vick@vickmickunas.com

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I will read the machine. Sounds good. I am fortunate to have been a child at the right age to enjoy the Big Red Machine, but my young son has had nothing to cheer about. I hope we are able to share a time when the Reds are champs again, but the future isn't looking bright.

michael
7:44 AM, 11/10/2009

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These sound like wonderful books. Thanks for tips. I sure loved the Big Red Machine. Speaking of gambling, Ty Cobb was as "dirty" in this regard as anyone. Baseball gained its popularity as a gambler's game. Watching some of the calls during this years playoffs, I don't think umpires are investigated colosely enough.

Peter Rose
12:14 PM, 10/19/2009

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