The '09 version: 30 baseball books in 30 days of April ...

A year ago, we knocked out 30 recently-published baseball books in 30 days during the month of April as a way to get in shape for the major league baseball season (the whole list, linked here).

A lot of them are still available if you're looking for a good read. And a lot of the books coming out this year may look like spin-offs of what's been successful.

For example, our favorite book from a year ago, "101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out" (linked here) has a rival for best baseball book of '09 -- a series called "100 Things (fill in the name of the team) Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die." The one based on the Dodgers, by Jon Weisman, comes out later in April (go to this link for more information and ordering).

It's far from just rehashing things that have already been written about people, places and things. Weisman, who started the blog DodgerThoughts.com and was a former sports writer at the L.A. Daily News, includes fresh interviews, thoughtful essays, plenty of exploration of events and teams and plays and stadiums that you probably hadn't even known about. We'll circle back to this and get more into it later in the month after we've had more time to digest it.

Starting tomorrow, with reviews popping up about noontime, we'll attack the month with a stack of books we've already started and hopefully can fill out as April eases on.

If you've come across some baseball books that have come out in recently -- we're looking at 2009 publication dates -- gives us a heads up and we'll cover it. Until then, relax and smell the fresh-cut printed pages of baseball.