How To Make A Great Baseball Book Cover

By Dan Schlossberg

Here's the cover of The New Baseball Bible third edition, to be published next spring by Skyhorse.Photo byDan Schlossberg

Authors don’t have total control over publishers before baseball books go to press.

That is why I am so grateful to Jason Katzman, my editor at Sports Publishing, for allowing me to pick the colors and cover pictures for the next edition of The New Baseball Bible.

This oversized paperback is an unorthodox illustrated history of baseball with an emphasis on oddities and ironies. Plenty of those pop up every day, in every game — so many in fact that I actually teach a Bergen Community College course for seniors called “Baseball Ironies & Oddities.”

The new book, due for publication next spring, is actually the third edition produced by Sports Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse and my primary publisher over the last 10 years. They also published my 2024 Hank Aaron biography, the autobiographies I ghosted for Ron Blomberg and Milo Hamilton, and other efforts.

None was as big or as painstaking as The New Baseball Bible, which contains a subtitle called Notes, Nuggets, Lists, and Legends From Our National Pastime.

The last edition, published in 2020, featured bright yellow type on a black background at the top of the page, my name and the names of John Thorn and Al Clark separated by horizontal lines in the center, and a collage of players at the bottom.

Now, since Jason accepted my suggestions, the black background remains but the title appears in blue except for the word “New,” which has been changed to red (too many interviewers were forgetting to include it).

The player collection is also different.

After Jason and I agreed that it was important to include both Hall of Famers and representatives of assorted colors, creeds, teams, and leagues, we added Shohei Ohtani in a Dodgers uniform, subbed a photo of Bob Feller for a cartoon of Cy Young, and added our first black-and-white cover shot: Negro Leagues legend Josh Gibson.

Back from the last cover are three players whose pictures I took myself — Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Tom Seaver — plus David (Big Papi) Ortiz and Derek Jeter.

The toughest decision for me was Feller rather than Sandy Koufax but I didn’t want to overdo the Dodgers theme and Ohtani will suffice.

Gone from last time are Mariano Rivera, Young, and a large picture of Mike Trout in a red Angels uniform (Ken Griffey, Jr. had the spot in the 2017 edition).

With marketing in mind, there are two players from New York teams (Seaver and Jeter), one from Boston (Ortiz), one from Los Angeles (Ohtani), one from the black leagues (Gibson), and the greatest home run tandem in baseball history (Aaron and Mathews). Black, white, and Japanese players are represented too.

The book will run close to 500 pages again, contain a detailed index for easy reference, and have an extensive bibliography.

Publication date will probably be next April, just in time for the start of the 2025 season.

Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is author or co-author of 40 books, with two more on the way. Email him at ballauthor@gmail.com.