Donald Honig is an American writer whose bibliography includes baseball oral histories, illustrated team histories, fiction, and books for younger readers. His baseball work often draws on interviews with former players. Several illustrated projects were written with Lawrence S. Ritter. Alongside those histories, Honig wrote stories involving baseball and other sports, as well as fiction with different historical settings.
The variety of forms is important when identifying his books. A player’s recollection in an oral history is different from a fictional baseball character, and a team history has a different purpose from a selected list of great players. Honig’s bibliography includes all of these approaches. His books for younger readers also extend into basketball, hockey, football, swimming, and running.
Donald Honig Books
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Baseball Books
New York Yankees: This illustrated history follows the New York Yankees through photographs and accompanying historical material. Honig places players and team achievements within a franchise account rather than concentrating on one career. The combination of images and text gives readers a visual record of the organization, connecting recognizable figures with the broader history of the baseball club.
Baseball in the '50s: A Decade of Transition, An Illustrated History: Honig examines professional baseball during the 1950s using an extensive collection of photographs and historical commentary. The book considers a decade of change in the sport, including its development as a larger business. Individual players and team events provide visible markers within a wider account of the period and the baseball world taking shape during it.
Baseball America: The Heroes of the Game and the Times of Their Glory: Honig connects baseball personalities with the periods in which they played, drawing on interviews and historical material. The book considers figures such as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean, and Ted Williams as participants in a changing American society. Individual experience provides a way to examine both the game’s development and its relationship with the surrounding culture.
The Chicago Cubs: An Illustrated History: This photographic history follows the Chicago Cubs across more than a century of baseball. Honig arranges images and explanatory material to connect players, events, and changing periods in the team’s history. Its broad franchise focus distinguishes it from an account of a single pennant race, using the visual record to show continuity and change within the organization.
The St. Louis Cardinals: An Illustrated History: Honig uses photographs and historical text to follow the St. Louis Cardinals across more than a century. The book presents the team through the people and periods represented in its surviving visual record. Rather than limiting the account to one championship or star player, it offers an illustrated history of a franchise and the careers associated with it.
Greatest Pitchers Of All Time: Honig presents the careers of twenty-one outstanding pitchers from different periods of baseball history. The selection includes figures such as Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, and Jim Palmer. Individual accounts allow readers to compare achievements while following the range of careers represented by some of the game’s most prominent pitchers.
Greatest First Basemen Of All Time: This collection follows nineteen notable first basemen, including Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Orlando Cepeda, and Keith Hernandez. Honig describes their careers within a book organized around a shared position. The format makes it possible to consider different kinds of achievement while introducing individual players whose records and reputations contributed to the history of first-base play.
The Greatest Shortstops of All Time: Honig examines outstanding shortstops and the range of skills associated with their position. The book considers hitting, speed, defensive range, throwing, and the work of turning a double play. Individual careers provide the basis for comparing players whose value can involve different combinations of offensive production, physical ability, consistency, and effectiveness in the field.
The Los Angeles Dodgers: The First Quarter Century: Honig traces the Dodgers after the franchise’s move to Los Angeles, using historical accounts and photographs of important players. The book concentrates on the club’s first quarter century in its new city. That period gives the account a distinct scope within Dodgers history, separating the Los Angeles organization from the earlier Brooklyn era associated with the same franchise.
The New York Mets: The First Quarter Century: This history examines the New York Mets during the franchise’s first twenty-five years. Honig describes players, managers, memorable games, and the team’s changing fortunes. Season records and statistical leaders supplement the narrative material. The book combines a broad team account with reference information, giving readers several ways to follow the club’s early major league history.
Winter Always Comes: Young professional player Billy Prescott discovers that a large signing bonus does not remove the difficulties of his first baseball season. He must respond to changing fan reactions and establish himself among more experienced players. The novel follows the gap between entering professional baseball with expectations and learning how to earn a place and the respect of others.
Way to go, Teddy: Ted chooses professional baseball despite his father’s opposition, then struggles to be honest with him as his performance changes. A promising start gives way to declining results, increasing the tension between ambition and family expectations. The story places the emotional demands of a young player’s career alongside the difficulty of maintaining a relationship while pursuing an uncertain goal.
The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson: In this baseball mystery, sportswriter Joe Tinker suspects a plot against Jackie Robinson as Robinson prepares to break the major league color barrier. Tinker begins an investigation of his own. The novel uses a major moment in baseball integration as the setting for suspense, combining a fictional inquiry with the pressures surrounding a historically significant player.
Johnny Lee: Seventeen-year-old Johnny Lee leaves Harlem to begin a professional baseball career in the South. The move exposes him to racial attitudes unlike those he has previously experienced. Honig places the young player’s sporting ambitions within that unfamiliar environment, making the challenges of race and place central to a story about entering the professional game.
Last Man Out: Sportswriter Joe Tinker becomes involved in a murder investigation after a promising Dodgers rookie is connected to the death of a wealthy New York woman. The story takes place after World War II, when baseball’s returning players and emerging talent offer renewed expectations. Honig combines that sporting setting with a fictional inquiry into suspicion, relationships, and a violent crime.
Hurry home: Tommy leaves an important baseball game because he is worried about his ill father. His concern draws him home before he learns the result of the contest. The story for younger readers places family attachment beside the emotional importance of playing, using a brief baseball situation to examine what matters when personal responsibilities interrupt a competitive event.
The professional: Bob discovers that the expectations of professional baseball differ from his experience playing in high school. The story centers on the adjustment required when an enjoyable school activity becomes a more demanding form of competition. Honig uses the player’s new circumstances to introduce younger readers to the distance between youthful success and establishing oneself in the professional game.
Up from the minor leagues: Seven major league players describe their experiences in the minor leagues and the progression toward a place at the highest level. Their accounts consider both the difficulties of developing a professional career and the satisfaction of a promotion. The book focuses on the less visible stages of baseball employment that precede the more familiar public life of a major leaguer.
Baseball when the grass was real : baseball from the twenties to the forties told by the men who played it: Honig interviews eighteen former major league players about baseball during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Their recollections describe careers and a professional world remembered by its participants. The book preserves individual perspectives on the game, using conversation and memory to supplement the more familiar historical record of famous players, statistics, championships, and franchise changes.
Baseball between the lines: Baseball in the '40s and '50s as told by the men who played it: Former players recall baseball during the 1940s and 1950s in this oral-history collection. The interviews combine accounts of competition with commentary on life around the game. Honig brings together different careers and personalities, allowing the participants’ memories to describe an era through experiences that extend beyond the events usually summarized in season records and statistical tables.
The October Heroes: Players recall important World Series moments in this collection of championship stories. Honig gathers memories associated with prominent figures and contests across several decades, including recollections reaching from 1912 to 1974. The book presents postseason history through participants’ perspectives, emphasizing the individuals and events that give each championship series a beginning, a conflict, and an outcome.
Baseball's Ten Greatest Teams: Honig examines ten outstanding baseball teams, ranging from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. The account describes players and games as part of an attempt to explain what made these clubs exceptional. Its subject is collective achievement, bringing individual performances into the larger story of teams remembered for sustained strength or championship success.
The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time: Honig and Lawrence S. Ritter select 100 baseball players and consider their achievements through biographical accounts, illustrations, and statistics. The volume places individuals within their eras while inviting comparison across the sport’s history. It functions as a collection of player portraits and as an argument about exceptional performance, rather than as an exhaustive listing of everyone who played.
Mays, Mantle, and Snider: A Celebration: Honig examines Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider, three celebrated center fielders whose careers became closely associated in baseball memory. The book considers their lives and reputations as well as their shared position. Comparing the players provides a way to revisit an era while recognizing that each athlete had a distinct career and public identity.
The All-Star Game: "A Pictorial History, 1933 to Present": Honig traces the All-Star Game from its beginning in 1933 through the period covered by this illustrated volume. Players, performances, and statistical records give shape to the history of the annual exhibition. The book treats the event as a recurring institution, connecting separate games through the changing generations of stars selected to represent the major leagues.
The Image of Their Greatness: Written with Lawrence S. Ritter, this illustrated history follows baseball through photographs of the people associated with successive decades. Explanatory text places the images within the development of the sport. The volume combines visual recognition with historical information, allowing readers to follow changing eras through faces and careers as well as through a narrative of events.
Hockey Books
Fury on skates: A talented young hockey player begins to question the violence associated with his sport and his own feelings about participating. The story examines a conflict between competitive success and personal judgment. Instead of treating athletic ability as a complete answer, the novel asks what happens when a player must reconsider the behavior expected within the game he plays.
Coming back: Tom returns to hockey after recovering from a foot injury. His renewed participation creates the central sporting situation of this short book for younger readers. The story concentrates on the transition back into team competition, giving the physical interruption of an athletic activity and the opportunity to play again an accessible place within a youth-sports narrative.
Basketball Books
Breaking in: Rich joins the basketball team at a new high school without confidence in his place among the players. The story follows his adjustment as his abilities become important to the team. Honig uses a familiar youth-sports setting to explore uncertainty, belonging, and the process by which an athlete discovers a useful role in an unfamiliar group.
Football Books
Playing for keeps: Ben wants to play high school football, but his father opposes the plan. The disagreement places family authority and a young person’s sporting ambition at the center of the story. Honig uses the possibility of joining a team to explore a conflict that must be addressed away from the field as well as through athletic participation.
Swimming Books
Going the Distance: Carol contributes to her swimming team’s attempt to win a city championship. The short sports story places her individual participation within a collective competitive goal. Written for younger readers, it presents swimming as a team activity as well as an individual performance, organizing the narrative around the part one athlete can play in a shared result.
Running Books
Running Harder: Tom learns that preparing for a track meet requires more sustained work than he expected. His experience leads him to reconsider the coach’s advice about conditioning. The story connects athletic goals with preparation and the acceptance of instruction. A glossary of track terms supports younger readers encountering the language and setting of organized running competition.