Book Review: Why We Love Baseball - A History in 50 Moments

I’ve never been someone who had any kind of interest in sports. It could be down to my introverted nature but no matter how many sports I’ve tried to watch and experience, none of them ever really clicked for me. That was until I started watching the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025 and I realized how exciting a sport professional Baseball can be. I think it was down to how unpredictable a sport it can ultimately be, no matter how down in runs a team might be there’s always that hope that the bats can string hits together and pull the lead back in miraculous fashion. While the Blue Jays season ended in heartbreak I would be lying if it didn’t cement a strong adoration for the sport that has got me properly invested for the first time in my entire life. I figured with my new-found love for America’s pastime I would look at some recommended books about the sport to get myself for familiarized with the history of it.

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments is a breakdown of the history of Baseball in 50 of its most iconic moments. Joe Posnanski is an American sports journalist who has had a dedicated career covering the sport of baseball as an editor for Sports Illustrated and The Kansas City Star. With his love for the sport and his experience covering it throughout the years he makes the ideal person to break down some of its finest moments with extensive detail and referencing. The format of the book is broken down through 50 individual chapters for each respective moment along with small interluding sections in which he discusses other minor moments or lists which are relevant to the sport’s illustrious history.

As a comprehensive breakdown of the sport and its most defining moments in history, I really enjoyed the way Posnaski structured and wrote the book. His ability to immediately frame these moments in respect to the time period, games and players so specifically really helps give the reader as much context to visualize the moment from a prose format. I loved reading all the extra details and trivia that Joe adds to contextualize the moments even more to further exemplify the importance of them too. There’s a nice variety in the moments too, it doesn’t feel like Joe’s just listing out his favourite home run moments, he gives a decent effort to diversify the moments not just through games but other stuff like iconic interviews, movies, and broken records.

While I am still an admitted novice when it comes baseball, I do feel a little more educated on the history of the sport after reading this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading each moment and all of that is down to Posnanski’s ability to take the reader right back to that moment in time. His career covering the sport clearly comes to the forefront with this book with how insightful he’s able to make it while never for one moment making it feel boring or a slog to work through