With the All Star Game on the horizon and mid-summer approaching, a triple play of top baseball reads is there for the taking and the reading. From Triumph Publishers comes STRANGERS IN THE BRONX and RED SOX NATION. From Flatiron Books comes BIG DATA BASEBALL. All belong on your sports bookshelf.
STRANGERS IN THE BRONX by Andrew O'Toole ($28.95, 277 pages) could have been even better with much tighter editing, an index and an inclusion of a Harvey Frommer Yankee book or two in the bibliography.
But seriously and despite those flaws, the book is a diamond mine of data (lots re-cycled) about that long ago time of the 1951 season, Yankees, Joe DiMaggio leaving and Mickey Mantle coming. The real strength of the book is the time machine nature of a different world of baseball and sports writing. Yankees. TOP DRAWER
