100 Years of the World Series [Hardcover]

Eric Enders (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2003

With this comprehensive play-by-play, you can relive a century's worth of the heartstopping action, the unforgettable performances, and the human drama that have become synonymous with the Fall Classic. Arranged by year, this attractive, large-format volume is packed with hundreds of remarkable photographs of legends like Ruth, Jackson, and Bonds at play, as well as candid behind-the-scenes shots, and breathtaking panoramic park views. Images even include little seen baseball memorabilia and promotional items. Test your baseball trivia know-how against the extensive Series statistics included here, including box and line scores for every game played. Fascinating sidebars trace the evolution of the game from its nineteenth century roots to the rise and fall of the Negro League World Series to the importance of broadcast media, and much more. Written by noted baseball historian Eric Enders, this encyclopedic book is the most detailed popular reference ever published on the greatest sports championship in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1903, the first World Series (originally called the "World's Series") ended five games to three-in a best-of-nine series-with a Boston Pilgrims win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. In this comprehensive retrospective, Enders (Ballparks: Then and Now; Play Ball!) uses that series to begin his historical jog around the bases. He labels the first decade and a half of baseball "The Deadball Era" (1903-1919), a time when baseball experienced an expansion of teams and a change in philosophy ("the question was not whether you could hit home runs, but whether you could get a bunt down and steal bases"). From there, Enders guides readers through "Baseball Between Wars" and "The Free Agent Era" (1976-1994) to "The Reign of the Sluggers" (1995-2002). The book includes more than 600 photos, both black and white and color, of the teams and players in action-along with sidebar statistics of every World Series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The centennial of baseball's World Series has occasioned a torrent of new books celebrating the Fall Classic--histories, memoirs, and, of course, coffee-table pictorials. In the latter category, this gorgeous, eye-popping survey clearly bats clean-up. The text is organized chronologically, with chapters grouping the 100 World Series by theme ("The Deadball Era, 1902-1919" or "The Free Agent Era, 1976-1994"). Sportswriter Enders' series-by-series commentary summarizes the action, provides appropriate backstory, and flashes forward to set the stars' careers in context. Occasional sidebars on related topics--"Negro League World Series"; "World Series on the Air"--add spice. The real treat, though, is the photos. Crisply reproduced and attractively displayed, the more than 600 images, mostly action shots, freeze the great moments of Series history and ignite fans' memories: Sandy Koufax in full stride (see this issue's cover); Bill Buckner's fatal error; and on and on. That, after all, is the real purpose of this kind of book: to serve as a launching pad for fans' imaginations, sending us back in time to where we were when Mays made his catch or Larsen threw the perfect game or Mazeroski hit his homer. Granted, you need to be a certain age for the above examples to have full impact, but that's the point, too: the World Series is a shared rite linking baseball fans of all ages, and this nostalgia-soaked tribute lets us pick our poison where we may. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble (February 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760742014
• ISBN-13: 978-0760742013
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,852,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Enders is a freelance writer, baseball historian, and former researcher at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Village Voice, Variety, MLB's World Series program, Yankees Magazine, and many other publications. He has also been a reporter for the El Paso Herald-Post and a freelance editor and proofreader for numerous publishers including Barnes & Noble and National Geographic.

A native of El Paso, TX, and a lifelong Dodger fan, Eric operates Triple E Productions, a baseball research and editing company.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Classic of the Fall Classic, February 4, 2004

By 

Rob Pendell (Manchester, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 100 Years of the World Series (Hardcover)

At first glance, "100 Years" appears to be a coffee table book, and a great one at that. It is rich with images, not only photographs, but reproductions of ticket stubs, World Series programs, film frames, logos, linescores, newspaper headlines, comic strips--all displayed in a professionally designed layout on glossy pages. The hundreds of photographs are brilliantly reproduced and the selection is terrific. I, too, have to disagree with the first reviewer who said these are commonly found images. In some places where Enders could have gone with a typical image, he often found an alternative photo (ex: for the '75 Series, he didn't go with an image of Fisk in mid-air waving the ball fair, but instead found a photo that better captured the energy of the moment, just after the ball cleared the wall, Fisk coiled on the basepath and the on-deck hitter in full leap along with the crowd behind them). And many of these images I have never seen before--I particularly liked the photo of Schoolboy Rowe sipping from a water fountain in the dugout. The book has humor, too; for example, there's a photo of Mike Schmidt giving George Brett a pat on the ol' hemorrhoids during the 1980 Series.

Alongside the book's aesthetic design is a concise, entertaining, well-written text that doesn't miss too many of the great moments of the Series. Enders has an engaging style and the work clearly draws from thorough research. He goes the extra yard to include the Negro Leagues and the Women's League, and there are features on broadcasters, sports writers, and a list of "Last Outs"--the final batter-and-pitcher matchups of each Series and their results. This work can sit on anyone's reference shelf as the definitive text of the history of the World Series.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Of Its Kind, February 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: 100 Years of the World Series (Hardcover)

Of all the books covering the first 100 Years of the World Series, this is by far the best of the lot. For starters, this is a beautiful book. The photos are very striking--the reviewer who said he had seen all these photographs before doesn't know what he's talking about. Yes, there are some famous photographs here (as there should be) but there are also many photographs that I have never seen before, and I have been reading and writing about baseball history for many years. In addition, Enders's narrative is very lucid and engaging, relating the important events and figures of each series in a style that is at once both informative and engaging. The book also includes sidebars on the Negro Leagues World Series, the 19th Century World Series, as well as interesting articles on the history of Fall Classic broadcasts and World Series ejections. The appendices, which include statistical rankings and box scores for every baseball game, are also very handy and add nicely to the overall package.

All in all, if you are looking for a book on the first 100 years of the World Series to buy, this is without question or qualification the best currently available. Yes, there are a few minor errors, but what book of this size doesn't contain the occasional error? At any rate, those that do appear are not important. (For instance, the previous reviewer who complained that the appendix incorrectly listed the 1918 World Series as being played in Wrigley Field did NOT note that in the main body of the text, in the narrative of that Series, the stadium is clearly identified as Comiskey.)

But such minor issues aside, if you are looking for an illustrative, well-written and well-researched account of the history of the World Series, this is the book. At $19.95, it is a very good bargain.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eye appeal, yes, but not really definitive, February 17, 2009

By 

rickblaine1942 (Denver, Co.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall Classic: The Definitive History of the World Series (Hardcover)

This coffee-table sized book is certainly fun to gander through, but I wouldn't call it detailed or definitive, as the dust jacket claims. There have been books on the Series featuring play-by-play - but this tome probably has most books on the subject beat in terms of interesting and rarely viewed photography.

Having seen perhaps 60% of these photos in other references, that still left a juicy number that were new for me - Connie Mack in dark suit and derby hat posing with ace pitcher Chief Bender; a fresh-faced Eddie Collins (circa 1910); cops sitting along the wall past dugout at Shibe Park in Philadelphia (1913); Chick Gandil dropping a throw at first base in Game 1 (1919); Tony Lazzeri caught in a rundown between Grover Cleveland Alexander and Les Bell (Game 2, '26); Lou Gehrig taking b.p. ('27) and a great full-page shot of him taking infield ('36); a different view of Mazeroski rounding the bases after his Series-ender ('60); Kirk Gibson in full glory after his Game 5, eighth-inning homer put the Tigers away ('84) - there's enough surprises in here to offset the more familiar and mundane photos that are repeated here and in other histories.

On the other hand, there are numerous errors that you'd think would have been weeded out after four printings in five years. Many errors (too many to list) occur in the line scores. Those are minor annoyances. But what about the errors of omission, and in text, and captions accompanying the photos?

Early on, there's a composite picture of the '03 Boston Americans, and later a team photo of the '06 White Sox. It would be nice if they identified all the players (and not just the player-manager and one other player).

Why does a photo of fans lining up for Series tickets at the Polo Grounds (presumably '05), show up in the text for the '03 Series (when the Giants weren't there)?

Babe Adams didn't pitch three shutouts in the '09 Series as caption states (p. 27, although he did win three games, with one shutout).

An interesting photo (p. 47) shows the umpires for the 1913 Series (but doesn't mention they're named from right to left - I'm guessing the editors didn't know). So if you assume the photo is naming the figures from left to right (as per usual) you'd be misidentifying all four umpires (including the first two umpires inducted into the Hall of Fame - Bill Klem and Tom Connolly).

One glaring blunder on p. 32 shows a photo which claims to be Frank "Home Run" Baker, when it is actually Rube Oldring. Moreover, there's a pretty good picture of Baker on p. 8, and you'd think the editors could compare the two photos and realize they're not the same player. The error is then compounded with the caption under Oldring's photo (which claims to be Baker) stating, "Although he was normally a left-handed batter, this photo shows Baker taking his practice swings right-handed." Tsk, tsk. I guess you'd call that a creative way to mask the mistake. Baker and Oldring did play on the same team, though, so I guess that's considered "close enough."

A well-recognized photo (p. 124) of four Yankees after their Game 2 Series victory ('50) names Joe DiMaggio and Allie Reynolds, but neglects to mention the other two players (Gene Woodling and Jerry Coleman). Is it too much to ask an editor to name all four players prominently displayed? Would that require too much of his time to research it?

The text to the '66 Series states that when the Orioles shut out the Dodgers three straight times, it was a "World Series first." Of course, the Giants famously shut out the Philadelphia Athletics three straight times way back in 1905.

Some might say that pointing out mistakes or omissions is being picky - but I noticed them just in a half-hour or so of perusing the book - there's undoubtedly many others. This wasn't a first effort baseball book from this editor - he's done others. Plus, this 2007 edition is a fourth printing, according to the copyright. There were several years to correct the errors.

Still, the book does have eye appeal, and the paper is thick and glossy. I'll probably tackle the text more closely at a later date - as several errors and omissions popped out at me, I'm probably a little cynical about reading on for pleasure.