Seattle Baseball Book Club

Book Club update here!

(Update: We'll be meeting at the Elliott Bay Book Company, in the downstairs cafe. The first two meetings and books will be: Saturday April 8th, 4pm - Out of Left Field by Art Thiel and Saturday May 6th, 4pm - Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus writers, edited by Jonah Keri)


Alright. I'm going to stop being lazy about this and make it happen. The USSM post about the new "everything you ever wanted to know about baseball but were afraid to ask" book that Jonah and the good folks down at Baseball Prospectus wrote reminded me that I keep forgetting to follow up on this.

So. Book club. As in, a get-together-and-discuss-baseball-books club.

Right now, my plan, pending confirmation from the Elliott Bay Book Company, is something to the effect of:

- Once per month, generally the first Saturday of the month, meet at Elliott Bay [or other place near Safeco if it turns out that way].
- Discuss the month's book and probably generally talk about other random baseball-related stuff for an hour or two.
- Pick book to read for the next month's meeting.
- Those interested can walk down to Safeco afterwards and take in the evening's Mariners game.

Looking at the M's schedule, book club meetings could work out something like this (this is not set in stone, just my thoughts):

April 8th : Oakland, 6:05pm game, 3:30pm book club meeting
May 6th : Cleveland, 6:05pm game, 3:30pm book club meeting
June 3rd: Kansas City, 7:05pm game, 4:30pm book club meeting
July : not sure, either the 1st (Colorado, 7:05pm) or 8th (Detroit, 7:05pm), 4:30 book club
August 5th: Oakland, 1:05pm game, book club meeting following the game (sorry, this was listed as 7:05 originally, dunno why it changed)
September 9th: Texas, 6:05pm game, 3:30pm book club meeting

And after that, if it works out, continue on the first Saturday of each month meeting somewhere and discussing books. Isn't it fun to keep baseball in your heart by reading books during the offseason anyway?

I think if we had "Baseball Between the Numbers" as a book club book, though, I would want to do it for May, not April -- it may be short notice for people to acquire a copy, particularly since I'm not sure it's even in every store around town yet. I'm also thinking it'd be fun to have people read something by Jim Bouton before he comes here as part of the SABR convention this summer.

The Elliott Bay Book Company is about three blocks from Safeco Field. I think it may even be possible to get discounts on book club books if we pick them in advance and order a whole bunch.

Anyway, I WILL make this happen this time. Even if it's just me and Conor Glassey sitting around talking about books. But y'all should come along as well.

I hope some people will be interested in this! I'll post more details as soon as I can work them out!

(incase you didn't see the link at the top, there's an update here!)