Baseball Book Reviews

 The 2005 Washington Nationals: Baseball Returns to the Capital by Ted Leavengood

The book, The Washington Nationals: Baseball Returns to the Capital by Ted Leavengood, tells the story about the 2005 Washington Nationals who relocated from Montreal where they were the Montreal Expos from 1969-2004 to Washington D.C. to become the Washington Nationals which resulted in baseball being brought back to Washington D.C. after a 33-year absence.

The book contains various pictures which look really cool! It even shows what the 2005 Washington Nationals' roster look liked on opening day and at the end of the season. Additionally, it shows what the standings look liked in each of the three divisions in the National League on both Independence Day and the end of the season.

The book is really enjoyable to read from start to finish! The book itself is really fun to read as it does an excellent job referencing baseball history and explaining a lot about the Washington Nationals' games and other things in 2005 with the descriptive prose that covers each game.

Overall, I'll give the book a 10/10! I'd highly recommend it to any baseball fan, people from Washington D.C. or anywhere close to it, or even those who are huge fans of the Washington Nationals in general!

Lefty Grove: American Original by Jim Kaplan

Lefty Grove: American Original by Jim Kaplan is a biography book from SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) about Lefty Grove (1900-1975), a left-handed pitcher Hall of Famer for the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Sox. It was published in 2000. 

In the book, the author, Jim Kaplan argues that Lefty Grove was the greatest baseball pitcher, and even the greatest left-handed pitcher of all time. When doing so, he tells a riveting story about a singular personality in the process. He also talks about when he dominated baseball with a blinding fastball and a temper, but he rebuilt himself as a control pitcher after he injured his arm during the middle of his career.

The book does an phenomenal job telling the story of both Lefty Grove’s baseball career and his personal life, among other things. It does a wonderful job comparing him to other Hall of Fame pitchers while debating if he really is the greatest pitcher of all-time in various categories. Among those include career value, wins, performance under pressure, versatility, his time as a reliever, durability, control, strikeouts, shutouts and complete games, fielding and hitting, and his peak performance. I agree from reading it that he would’ve won a lot more games had his MLB career began much earlier in the 1920s than in real life and thus he would have the most wins for any pitcher whose career began in the liveball era instead of Warren Spahn who won 363.

Overall, I’ll give the book a 10/10! Every baseball fan will definitely enjoy it! They can debate how great Lefty Grove really was as a pitcher! From my point of view, he is the greatest left-handed pitcher of all time with Warren Spahn being the second-greatest left-handed pitcher!

Warren Spahn: A Biography of the Legendary Lefty by Lew Freedman