There’s no more MLB baseball for me to watch in 2009 and while some games from the Dominican, Venezuelan and Puerto Rican Winter Leagues will be made available it isn’t the constant stream you get during the regular season. So I’ve assembled an offseason reading list to keep me from missing watching a game pretty much almost every night as much.

It’s true that I read baseball books during the season as well, but between watching and attending a boatload of games at various levels it takes me a lot longer to finish a book from Spring Training to the World Series. So this list may look ambitious but dammit I need something to consume my time other than video games (of which there will be no shortage with the backlog I built up during the season).

So, with all that said here’s a preliminary listing of what I’m hoping to get through:

• Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball
• Yankee for Life: My 40-Year Journey in Pinstripes
• Crazy ’08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History
• The 33-Year-Old Rookie: My 13-Year Journey from the Minor Leagues to the World Series
• The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball
• Built to Win: Inside Stories and Leadership Strategies from Baseball’s Winningest GM
• Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember
• Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen

I started Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball a few games into the World Series but it’s very long (almost 700 pages) and so I just consider it getting a small head start on the list.

That’s two books for every month until Spring Training starts up. Hopefully it’s enough to keep me busy. If it’s not, well, Border’s is constantly sending me coupons I feel compelled to use.