Writing about baseball

Baseball is the only sport I follow at all faithfully, and specifically I follow the Red Sox. I haven't always, but after living in New England for almost thirty years, the bug caught. I remember about twenty years ago, while riding out a stretch of unemployment while earning my MLS, reading a novel I found in the Waltham Public Library, If I Never Get Back. It was a time-travel novel, so if I were cataloging it I'd have to cross science ficiton with sports (not sure how many books span those two). I do not recall the writer, but I remember reading the jacket copy and he was an English teacher from the Left Coast, and the book was a pretty well researched story set in the early years of the game. Instead of being called Sox, teams with that appellation were called 'Stockings'... the Red Stockings, etc. It entertained me, and the main reason it's stuck with me is that it's the only sports title I've ever finished reading.
I keep meaning to read some baseball biographies but I don't consider sports figures ordinarily entertaining enough to justify a book... (some fan, eh?)