Lemonade in hand, hammock at ready ... feed your passion for the Great American Pastime during these long summer afternoons by delving into one of these recent baseball biographies.

The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the rage for baseball immortality, by Jeff Pearlman.  Clemens is fierce and hard-nosed, one of baseball's best pitchers, but deeply flawed.  The Boston Globe says this book "develops a stark, unsparing picture of Clemens's life that surpasses anything that's come before."

Satchel: the life and times of an American legend, by Larry Tye.  Leroy "Satchel" Paige could have been the star to break baseball's color line but Jackie Robinson got the first crack.  It's taken this long, says Publishers Weekly, to get the definitive biography of this black showman-athlete, one of the finest pitchers ever, who finally was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

A-Rod: the many lives of Alex Rodriquez, by Selena Roberts.  Roberts captures one of baseball's greatest players as a tragic figure in pinstripes: the man once considered the clean exception of the steroid generation is revealed as an unmistakable product of its greed and dissolution.

Straw: finding my way, by Darryl Strawberry.  Strawberry was dubbed "The Black Ted Williams," but he faced many personal challenges, including drug use, tax evasion, solicitation, and allegations of domestic violence. Strawberry tells his own story of finding redemption.

Yogi Berra: eternal Yankee, by Allen Barra.  "One of America’s most insightful and precise sports writers artfully separates the myth from the reality of the iconic Yogi," in this gripping biography of the legendary Hall-of-Famer and one of the most quotable figures in American culture. (David Maraniss).  "One of the best baseball books of the year," says Library Journal.

Reading List