With the playoff race heating up, this week we look at a book that came out in 2005 but is more appropriate than ever – Buzz Bissinger’s Three Nights in August.

For a team in the playoff hunt, August is when the pressure really starts to turn on. The heat of the dog days of summer offer no relief from the pressure of the teams that are competing for one of the four playoff spots in each league while days fall off the calendar. As fans we get a sense of the pressure that players and mangers face – but what if you could actually be at the center of it?

Putlizer Prize winning writer Buzz Bissinger takes you inside the storm of the playoff race by sitting you next to Tony LaRussa as he guides the St. Louis Cardinals through the 2003 season, focusing on an August series with the rival Cubs as they both race capture the NL Central crown.

This is the kind of book you want your friends and baseball buddies to read because you know it will make your appreciation for the game that much deeper and your conversations about what happens on and off the field that much better. Before I finished I felt like ordering it for the guys I play baseball with to help all of us better understand the strategy and thought process that occurs in the mind of one baseball’s greatest managers.