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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Great Predictor, August 22, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Baseball's Other All-Stars: The Greatest Players from the Negro Leagues, the Japanese Leagues, the Mexican League, and the Pre-1960 Winter Leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (Paperback)
Another vote for a book that accurately predicts what the greatest baseball players from around the world would have hit if they had had a chance to play in the major leagues. How accurate is the prediction? Well, at least one of these baseball legends is still active. Ichiro, the Seattle Mariner's Japanese sensation, was predicted to hit .335, with 31 doubles, 10 triples, and 8 home runs. His actual numbers for his first 550 at-bats, were .342, 31-8-6. That's uncanny predicting. So, if you would like to know what Josh Gibson, Shigeo Nagashima, or Cristobal Torriente would have hit in the major leagues, and how many home runs they would have hit, this book will tell you. Outstanding.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Worlds Greatest Baseball Players, August 9, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Baseball's Other All-Stars: The Greatest Players from the Negro Leagues, the Japanese Leagues, the Mexican League, and the Pre-1960 Winter Leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (Paperback)
This book is a landmark. It is the first book that discusses the greatest baseball players who never played in the major leagues. They played out their careers in the Negro Leagues, and in many other leagues around the world. One of the most intriguing things about the book is the statistical analysis that allows the reader to see how a player from Japan or Cuba might perform in the major leagues. The book predicted, more than one year ago, how Ichiro would do in the major leagues - and its right on the money! It also predicts how the other great professional baseball players around the world would have performed in the major leagues had they had the opportunity, players like Francisco Coimbre, Sadaharu Oh, Martin Dihigo, Josh Gibson, and dozens more. It's a fascinating educational experience, one that will surprise and shock you. If you want to become a true baseball expert, you have to read this book.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Setting the Record Straight, July 13, 2005
This review is from: Baseball's Other All-Stars: The Greatest Players from the Negro Leagues, the Japanese Leagues, the Mexican League, and the Pre-1960 Winter Leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (Paperback)
Someone needs to set the record straight on this book. One can argue endlessly over whether or not the book's premise (that stars from the Negro leagues, Latin leagues and Japanese League can be more properly evaluated simply by converting their actual career stats in those leagues to a major league standard of 162 games or 550 at-bats per annum) is valid or even at all insightful. Such a premise does apparently "beg the question" about the clearly different standards of play existing between these various leagues and major league baseball. It would seem far more valuable to promote a Josh Gibson or Martin Dihigo or Omar Linares by calling up detailed accounts of what their own leagues were actually like, or what their true talents actually were, from the accounts of those who actually saw them play.
It is in this later area that this book falls apart, since its creditability is totally undercut by numerous (dozens and dozens!) of historical errors, typographical errors, and editorial sloppiness. I only offer a small sample here. Player names are regularly given incorrectly, including major leaguers (Ed Rommell, Ed Roush, Juan Pizzaro, Rafael Palmero, Ricky Henderson, Mickey Owens, Earl Combs, etc.) and Latin leaguers (again Pizzaro for Pizarro, Mexican league boss Jorge Pascual, Pedro Formenthal, Bienvenido Jiminez, Raphael Almeida, Andres Gallaraga, Adolpho Luque, Eusatquio Pedroso, etc.). Names of Latin teams and locales are badly mangled (Estraelles Orientals for Estrellas Orientales, Remidios for Remedios, Vera Cruz for Veracruz and Almedares for Almendares, to cite but a handful). There are incorrect descriptions of ballplayers that suggest this author is unfamiliar with their actual careers and talents. Cuban legend Alejando Oms was in fact a lefty and not a righthanded slugger, Orestes Destrada is a Cuban and not American native, 1970s-80s Cuban slugger Lazaro Junco was a lefty and not righty, as was Cuban pitching ace Jorge Luis Valdes of the same era. And most regrettably, there are inexuseable errors in the facts about Latin American baseball history. Jud Wilson was an American and not a Cuban ballplayer; it is NOT true that Bombin Pedroso's Cuban League career stats are not available; the pre-1959 Cuban League went by various names over the years, but it was never called the Cuban Winter League; baseball was NOT first introduced to Cuba in 1866 by US sailors in Matanzas; Mike Gonzalez broke into the big leagues with the Boston Braves and not the Red Sox; Mickey Mahler was a US and not a Dominican pitcher; Pop Lloyd did NOT play 27 seasons in Cuba; the first recorded game in Havana was not in 1866; Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959 not 1960, and more importantly he did not end pro ball on the island until after the 1961 season, not in 1960; the Detroit Tigers team visiting Cuba in 1909 were not world champions; the 1908 Cincinnati Reds were not the first major leaguers to visit Cuba. And Cuba is certainly not "a tiny island nation" but one of the largest islands in the world!
To top it all off, the area of Latin America where baseball thrives is the Caribbean and not the CARRIBEAN. With such careless attention to details by both the book's editors and author, how can we take very seriously the rest of the detailed evaluations of ballplayers presented. The concept of this book may have been admirable, but the execution seems to harm as much as it helps the case for the lost leagues and stars the book features.
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