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. 

 Grantland Rice was an early 20th-century American sportswriter whose writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. In 1906 Grantland Rice penned "Casey's Revenge" a sequel to "Casey at the Bat, the classic poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. Rice’s first book of poems, "Base-Ball Ballads," was Published by The Tennessean Company, of Nashville, Tennessee in 1910.

 The book with illustrations By C. H. Wellington, contains baseball verse exclusively. It includes some of the best-known poems about baseball ever written, including "Casey’s Revenge, which was originally credited to an author named James Wilson, a pseudonym Grantland Rice used before acknowledging the poem as his creation; "Mudville’s Fate;" and the original version of "Game Called." In 1948 Rice revised "Game Called" into a eulogy for Babe Ruth.

 Published by Cupples & Leon in 1929, "Smitty At The Ball Game" features Smitty, a newspaper comic strip created in the early 1920s by Walter Berndt. Syndicated nationally by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, it ran from November 27, 1922, to 1974.

 The book about the young office boy Augustus Smith, aka Smitty, is working for a newspaper sports department. His photographer boss takes him to ballpark where he meets Babe Ruth. His job takes him to the ball park where he also meets other ballplayers such as Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby...

 AS it turns out, Smitty is one of the earliest baseball memorabilia collectors. He already has a Babe Ruth autographed baseball, but fishes a Grover Cleveland Alexander baseball glove out of the rubbish. He then proudly displays the glove on his dresser, but mom tells him to remove it. "But Ma - you don't understand." Page 19 Tittle: "Smitty - Pardon My Glove"

 In 1941, the American Sports Publishing Company, publishers of the Spalding Athletic Library, was sold to A.S. Barnes. The Spalding Athletic Library provided books for over 30 different sports since 1892. The Barnes Dollar Sports Library published books on baseball, football, basketball, and other major sports. The name was changed to The Barnes Sport Library when the price went up from a dollar.

 By the 1950s, A.S. Barnes & Company became the major publisher of sports reference books. "Clowning Through Baseball" by Al Schacht was published by A.S. Barnes &Company in 1941. Grammar and Adjectives by Murray Goodman, Forward by John Kieran, and Illustrated by Willard Mullin. Personal note: "Dedicated to My Mother who takes all the blame"

Part of the Barnes Sports Library, "How To Pitch" by Bob Feller was published by A.S. Barnes in 1948. Bob Feller tells you all his pitching secrets in "How To Pitch. He explains minutely how to throw every pitch in his arsenal... fast ball, slider, curve ball, knuckle-ball, and change of pace. Fully illustrated with instruction diagrams and action shots.

 The back of the dust cover features other Barnes Baseball Books: Babe Ruth By Tom Meany; Baseballs Hall of Fame by Ken Smith; Strikeout Story by Bob Feller; Do You Know Baseball? by Bill Brandt; My Greatest Day In Baseball by 47 starts as told to John P. Carmichael and other noted writers; They Played The Game by Harry Grayson; Gashouse Gang by Roy Stockton.

  Published in 1942 by William Morrow & Company, "Soldiers At Bat" by Jackson Scholz, is a story about a minor league baseball player that enlists in the U.S. Army during World War II. Other Baseball related books by Jackson Scholz include; Batter up (1946), Fielder from nowhere (1948) Deep Shirt (1952) Base Burglar (1955) Man In A Cahe (1957) The Perfect Game (1960) Center-field jinx (1961) Dugout Tycoon (1963) Spark Plug At Short (1966) The Big Mitt (1966)

 Jackson Scholz was an American sprint runner who became the first person to appear in an Olympic sprint final in three different Olympic Games. In 1920 he was a finalist in the 100 meters race, in 1924 he won the 200 meters and was second in the 100 meters. Then in 1928 he made the final of the 200 meters, narrowly missing a fourth Olympic medal. After his athletic career, he also gained fame as a writer. In 1981 Scholz was depicted in the movie Chariots of Fire.

  Part of the Childhood Of Famous Americans Series, "Lou Gehrig, Boy of the Sand Lots" by Guernsey Van Riper Jr. was published in 1949 by Bobbs-Merrill Company. Each volume in the series introduces in story form a famous American as a boy or girl about the reader's own age.

 The story covers the subject's childhood years, usually from about five to the early teens. Each volume is illustrated with drawings using silhouette figures against outline back grounds and these drawings have become a trademark for the series.

 The story of Lou Gehrig, Boy of the Sand Lots, opens on a Christmas scene in the modest Gehrig New York apartment. Louis is so thrilled with his gift, a catcher's mitt, that he doesn't have the heart to tell Mom and Pop (who know nothing of baseball) that the glove wouldn't fit their left-handed son. But the sand-lot gang allowed him to play because he brought along his mitt. Thus began Gehrig's career.

  Bat Boy Of The Giants is a true story told by Garth Garreau, a bat boy from Teaneck, New Jersey. He meets all the baseball heroes of the day at the old Polo Grounds, and tells stories about Johnny Mize, Buddy Kerr, Bill Rigney. Walker Cooper, Willard Marshall and other stars . . . dugout and clubhouse chatter, and his trips around the circuit.

 On September 19, 1948, the New York Giants honored the bat boy-author Garth Garreau at the Polo Grounds. Garrth, who turned 20 years old four days after "Garth Garreau Day," return to Michigan State College for his second year on September 22. He retired as Giants bat boy after years of association with the team, first assigned to the bats of visiting teams, later promoted to the Giants own

 A few years later Garreau graduated with an engineering degree, and participated in the NROTC program where he earned his wings with the U.S. Navy. But misfortune was to follow. On Nov. 8, 1954, Ex-batboy, Navy Lt. Garth Garreau, died in an airplane crash in the Mediterranean sea, during a simulated bombing NATO training mission.

  Jackie Robinson was the first African-American baseball superstar and a popular Brooklyn Dodger. The first book about him was Jackie Robinson: My Own Story by Jackie Robinson as told to Pittsburgh Courier sports writer Wendell Smith. This digest paperback reprinted the 1948 Greenberg hardcover.

 The cover price is 25 cents, but the back cover price is 35 cents! Consistency was a problem with some early paperback outfits. The book has a foreword by Branch Rickey and is full of rare black and white photos from Jackie’s life and his historic baseball career.

 In this book, the Brooklyn Dodger infielder provides some interesting inside details of his precedent smashing entry into organized baseball. The story, traces Jackie's athletic fortunes from poverty-ridden childhood in Georgia, through his spectacular scholarship athletic career at the University of California in Los Angeles, on through his year at Montreal and the historic 1947 season with Brooklyn.

  The Psychologist at Bat is a book written by David Farrell Tracy about his experiences with the St. Louis Browns baseball team. The book was published in 1951 by Sterling Publishing Company, with the foreword written by J. G. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News.

  David F. Tracy, the first psychologist ever attached to the staff of major league baseball team reveals in detail the methods he uses to transform nervous rookies failing veterans and perpetual in-and-outers into self-confident baseball players. Tracy draws on his experiences with the American league St Louis Browns to present psychological reasons for puzzling actions on and off the field in language that fans of all ages can understand.

 Dr. Tracy says his experiment with the Browns was neither success nor failure, in his mind. But he declares that he did one thing: He made the baseball world aware of its lag in accepting psychology. He talks of the importance a manager-coach-psychologist to sit on the bench. He says that psychologist training could better begin back in the minors. But he says the training he gave the Browns was limited in scope, because of the opposition of the manager.

A Junior Book, Published by William Morrow & Company; "Man In A Cage" by Jackson Scholz, is the story of Ted Kirby and how he found himself as a ball player filling in for a missing batboy: Ted was waiting in the Florida sunshine, to buy a ticket for the ball game when he was asked to help out the Boston Pilgrims, whose bat boy was missing that afternoon.

  It was Ted's first step away from the world of the circus, where he was learning to be a lion trainer, the man who gets into the cage with the big cats. The next step came soon. The situation at the circus suddenly changed; and the Pilgrim manager, discovering that his new batboy had possibilities as a catcher, offered him a contract.

 How Ted found himself as a ballplayer is the climax of a baseball story with a new twist, in which Mr. Schotz provides plenty of exciting diamond action and some equally exciting circus thrills.

  Published by Random House in 1966, "Strange But True Baseball Stories" by Furman Bishery, features amazing, funny, and offbeat moments in baseball history. About a midget who played in a major-league game. A dog who was listed in a box score. A mischievous player whose antics led to a Hollywood contract. A manager who put his batboy into a game. Fascinating facts and photos.

 Twenty-six wonderful episodes from the annals of baseball. Among them are tales of inspiring personalities who overcame great odds like Corporal Brissie or Bert Shepard or Pete Gray. There's the story of how Stan Musial literally somersaulted from a career as pitcher to immortality as a hitter. Or the frustrating story, of Harvey Haddix who pitched 12 perfect innings and lost a ball game. Or the Miracle Braves who came from last place on July 4, 1914, to win the pennant, winning 60 and losing 16 in the last half of the season.

  Ted Williams, Sam the Genius and Other Sports Stories from the Wall Street Journal was published by Dow Jones Books, and edited by Michael Gartner. With 192 pages the book covers some 30 sport stories, all of which have appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal doesn't have a sports section, or even a sports editor. When The Wall street talks about bull and bears it sometimes mean the Bulls and Bears of Chicago, not Wall Street.

 Quality stories involving Ted Williams are featured throughout the book. The cover art and four pages are illustrated by renown Sporting News artist Willard Mullin. Illustrations: Page 15 "The Long Season" By Todd E Fandell; Page 87 "Charlie O Charlie O" by John F. Lawrence; Page 177 "The Outcasts" by Michael Gartner; and Page 183 "The Splendid Skipper" Todd E Fandell.

  "My Turn At Bat The Story of My Life" by Ted Williams as told to John Underwood was published by Simon & Schuster in 1969. The following year, Pocket Books published the book in paperback, and also published a special edition for Gillette.

 In a 1970 promotion, when you purchased Gillette's Adjustable Techmatic Razor, for $2.29, you received the book Free. The paperback premium reads "Complements of Techmatic® by Gillette" at the bottom, and came in a picture box. "My Turn at Bat" is Ted Williams' own story of his spectacular life and baseball career. From his boyhood days in San Diego, through his career with the Boston Red Sox, to his job as manager of the Washing Senators.

  Published by Simon & Schuster, and written by David Falkner, highly acclaimed author of such highly acclaimed books as; Sandaharu Oh, The Short Season, and Nine Sides Of The Diamond, pens the first full biography of one of the most controversial baseball figures to date, Billy Martin. Falkner uncovers the real Billy Martin as those who loved, hated, hired, and fired him.

 For good or for ill, The Last Yankee shows the real Billy Martin, as he was known to those who loved him, hated him, fought with him (and against him), hires him, fired him, and made him a larger-than-life figure who galvanized and infuriated several generations of baseball fans.

 David Falkner paints a full and thorough portrait of the demons inside Martin and how they exploded out. Along the way, Falkner examines the nagging questions that still linger about Martian's controversial exploits: What led to Martians long-running battle's with Reggie Jackson? What was the real nature of his relationship with George Steinbrenner? Just what made him such a successful manager? and more...

  Published by Hachette Books in 2007, "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Run: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger" by bill Jenkinson; takes readers through Ruth's 1921 season in which his pattern of battled balls would have accounted for more than 100 home runs in today's ballparks and under today's rules.

 In an unprecedented look at Babe Ruth's amazing batting power, sure to inspire debate among baseball fans of every stripe, one of the country's most respected and trusted baseball historians reveals the amazing conclusions of more than twenty years of research.

 The title refers to Jenkinson's conclusion that in modern ballparks under modern rules, Ruth would have hit 104 home runs in 1921, 90 in some other seasons, and over 60 many times. The author's research concludes that Ruth would have hit well over a thousand home runs in his career.