According to selection criteria the author has developed, he ranks baseball's greatest players in order of greatness, chooses the best baseball player between 1893 and 1987, lists seven all-time all-star teams, and reviews the early Negro baseball leagues and players.
This thoroughly revised edition of "Baseball's Best 1,000" includes updated listings plus new players, rankings, and photographs, all in a handier format that makes it a terrific pocket reference. A must-have book for baseball fans obsessed with stats, quick facts, and the age-old debates over who the best players are and why, "Baseball's Best 1,000" showcases the lives, legends, and lore of the game's top players, ranked in order. Sportswriter Derek Gentile has pared down the total list of players--tens of thousands of them--to an elite ranking of the thousand greatest, based on criteria including lifetime stats; player durability and consistency; All-Star participation; MVP, Gold Glove, and Cy Young awards; individual statistical championships; personal and professional contributions to the game; sportsmanship; and election to the Hall of Fame. Each entry includes positions played, teams played for, years played, lifetime stats, and a biography of the player featuring his great moments and little-known facts. *New players include Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, and Manny Ramirez. *Barry Bonds has moved up from Number 19 to Number 6. *Roger Clemens has moved from Number 33 into the top 20. *Dozens of Negro League players are here, as well as rankings of the best Japanese players, women players, and "prehistoric" players (from the time before stats were formally recorded).
This fascinating book covers every era of baseball, position by position, and answers the question: Which players really belong in the Hall of Fame? Using eight simple criteria to determine the level of dominance each player exhibited during his career, baseball superexpert Robert Cohen defines the qualities a true Hall of Fame player should possess. Cohen solves or fuels the debate on who belongs in the Hall of Fame, and who doesn't. He also discusses the careers of the best players not elected to the Hall of Fame and the circumstances surrounding the greatest injustices in the selection process very great player is examined, not only in relation to the era in which he played, but against all the Hall-worthy stars who ever manned the position
The year 2017 is a special year, the seventieth anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson integrating modern baseball. Robinson's successes and challenges have been documented by baseball and civil rights historians. This three-part book presents the chronological history of baseball integration along with the major civil rights events of the 1940s and 1950s. Team First focuses upon each of the sixteen Major League teams and players (with life stories) who were the first to integrate each team. Some individuals were players of the Negro League, Hall of Famers, and World Series players and others whose notable contribution was only being the first to integrate. Information about owners, general managers, and managers influenced teams' orientation about integration. Rates of integration varied by team. The final three teams to integrate happened ten years after Robinson won the 1947 Rookie of the Year Award. Find out how your favorite team approached integration. How did your team compare to other National League and American League teams? How was your favorite team influenced by early civil rights events?
The best baseball team of the 20th century? How about the 1906 Cubs? Or the 1998 Yankees? Don't forget the 1929 A's, or the 1976 Reds. Some say the Yanks had a pretty good squad in 1927. There were so many great teams in the last century, it would be hard to compile a list of the 25 best--much less rank those clubs--but that's what the authors have done! This is an endlessly fascinating tome, sure to prompt spirited discussions around the water cooler or above the dugout. Let the arguments (and the fun!) begin!
Over baseball history, which park has been the best for run scoring? (1) Which player would lose the most home runs after adjustments for ballpark effect? (2) Which player claims four of the top five places for best individual seasons ever played, based on all-around offensive performance? (3) (See answers, below). These are only three of the intriguing questions Michael Schell addresses in Baseball's All-Time Best Sluggers, a lively examination of the game of baseball using the most sophisticated statistical tools available. The book provides an in-depth evaluation of every major offensive event in baseball history, and identifies the players with the 100 best seasons and most productive careers. For the first time ever, ballpark effects across baseball history are presented for doubles, triples, right- and left-handed home-run hitting, and strikeouts. The book culminates with a ranking of the game's best all-around batters. Using a brisk conversational style, Schell brings to the plate the two most important credentials essential to producing a book of this kind: an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball and a professional background in statistics. Building on the traditions of renowned baseball historians Pete Palmer and Bill James, he has analyzed the most important factors impacting the sport, including the relative difficulty of hitting in different ballparks, the length of hitters' careers, the talent pool from which players are drawn, player aging, and changes in the game that have raised or lowered major-league batting averages. Schell's book finally levels the playing field, giving new credit to hitters who played in adverse conditions, and downgrading others who faced fewer obstacles. It also provides rankings based on players' positions. For example, Derek Jeter ranks 295th out of 1,140 on the best batters list, but jumps to 103rd in the position-adjusted list, reflecting his offensive prowess among shortstops. Replete with dozens of never-before reported stories and statistics, Baseball's All-Time Best Sluggers will forever shape the way baseball fans view the greatest heroes of America's national pastime. Answers: 1. Coors Field 2. Mel Ott 3. Barry Bonds, 2001–2004 seasons
After hitting his then-record 60th home run of the 1927 season, Babe Ruth said, "Sixty, count 'em, sixty. Let's see some other son-of-a-bitch match that." Jimmie Foxx almost did, five years later, with an agonizingly close 58 four baggers. Here are the stories of Foxx's and 11 other near-record breaking performances: Bill Terry's 254 hits in 1930, three short of George Sisler's record 257; Elroy Face's 17 consecutive pitching victories, two short of Rube Marquard's record; and Willie Mays's 17 home runs in August of 1965, just one off Rudy York's mark for a single month, are three more of the performances detailed. Boxscores and statistical tables are provided.
In 1908 baseball was the only game that mattered in the South. With no major league team in the region, rivalries between Southern Association cities such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans were heated. This season, however, no city was as baseball-crazed as Nashville, whose Vols had been league doormat in 1907. After an unpromising start, the Nashville club clawed its way into contention during the month of July, rising into the upper division, then into a battle for first. Local interest intensified, as the competitive fire of Nashville fans was stoked by sharp-tongued columnist Grantland Rice and the city's three daily newspapers. By the time the Vols met the New Orleans Pelicans for a season-ending series, and the championship, the city was gripped by a pennant fever that shut down the commercial district. Nearly 13,000 people thronged the Nashville ballpark, Sulphur Dell, for the third and deciding contest. What they saw was described by Rice as "the greatest game ever played in Dixie."
In this third edition of Baseball Ratings, author Charles Faber combines the second edition ("great fodder for arguments"--Booklist) with his book on 19th-century greats, Baseball Pioneers ("very impressive"--Reference and User Services Quarterly; "a notable and ... worthwhile addition"--ARBA), updating the ratings and expanding the commentary in each. The result, Baseball Ratings: The All-Time Best Players at Each Position, 1876 to the Present, is that rarest of rankings books--a time-tested, comprehensive reference work that invites reading. Batters, fielders and pitchers from all major leagues since 1876 are ranked by position and, for pitchers, according to role (e.g., starter, middle reliever, closer) according to career, peak, and per-season achievement. All big league players with at least five years of eligibility are rated, and appendices identify underrated and overrated players, rate multiposition players, and sort the great by handedness.
"Hooper's instinct for knowing where the ball was going to be hit was uncanny. I'm sure, too, that he made more diving catches than any other outfielder in history. With most outfielders the diving catch is half luck; with Hooper, it was a masterpiece of business."--Babe Ruth, on his selection of Harry Hooper for his all-time all-star team Through the figure of Harry Hooper (1887-1974), star of four World Series championship teams and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Paul Zingg describes baseball's transformation from an often rowdy spectacle to a respectable career choice and entertainment institution. Zingg chronicles Hooper's rise from a sharecropper background in California to college and then to the pinnacle of his sport. Boston's leadoff hitter and right fielder from 1909 to 1920, Hooper later played for the Chicago White Sox, managed in the Pacific Coast League, and coached Princeton's team. When he retired from playing in 1925, he held every major fielding record for an American League right fielder. Hooper's diaries, memoirs, and six decades of letters offer a rich and colorful commentary on the evolution of the game, as well as insight into the tensions between a player's public and private lives.