One of the main reasons I love baseball – and reading about baseball – so much, is that there are so many things to write about. The history, the stories, the stats – it’s all there to spend some ink on.

And just when I thought I’d pretty much seen it all as far as topics, along comes Frank Russo and Gene Racz with their new book, Bury My Heart At Cooperstown. What makes this book so special? It’s dedicated to the deaths of ball players. That’s right – it’s about how ball players have died.

Ken Hubbs? Crashed his plane in a blizzard in Utah two weeks after he got his pilot’s license. Fred Holmes? Died in a fight in a mental hospital. George Stirnweiss? Drowned in a train after the motorman had a heart attack and the train plunged off an open lift bridge.

This is by far the weirdest baseball book I’ve read, and while I won’t say it’s required reading for a baseball fan – it’s an angle I’ve never seen covered. You might recognize a lot of the names in the book – which was the biggest obstacle that kept me from really getting engaged with it.

With the Baseball Book Review, I’m Pat Lagreid.