Customer Reviews

The Orioles Encyclopedia: A Half Century of History and Highlights

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I highly recommend this amazingly researched chronicle of Oriole's baseball. The detailed text and figures are a statistician's dream while the photos and commentary help portray the beautiful artistry of the game. Whether or not you are an Oriole's fan, you will appreciate this great book of baseball.

This book offers so much for any true fan of the grand old game. It is the go-to guide for Baltimore Orioles fans, both young and old. The book not only offers statistics, player bios, and manager information - but it also elaborates on the Orioles impact on the greater Baltimore community. What I love about the book is all the quirky facts that they pack in the 800+ pages, which makes reading this quite fun! Johns Hopkins has again published a gem!

A great reference book...bought it as a gift for my brother, & he loved it!

Something like this must have taken years to put together. As a later addition to the Orioles fanbase, this tome gives you everything you ever wanted to know about the franchise since it arrived in Baltimore in 1954.

Stats, stories, player bios, owner and manager bios, history of the parks they played in, and on and on...

People often forget the past and this was one franchise that was filled with hsitory and accomplishments especially from 66-83. Recent struggles have washed people's memories, but this book brings it all back to the surface.

Mr. Gesker should be thanked for putting together such a book. For true fans of the team and baseball in general, this is a must have.

PS - Book is great for autographs too. Numerous photos inside!

a must read for any oriole backer whether a baby boomer or a 5th grader just starting to play organized little league. Gesker captures it all in amazing detail from the early days of the Browns coming to Baltimore, the 50's, the glory years of Weaver, Palmer, and the Robinsons into the Angelos era. Mark Stryker

This book is a must-have for true Oriole fans -- a comprehensive history and a treasury of photos. Turn to it as a reference or just to enjoy browsing through years of favorite players and teams.

Mike Gesker's wonderful Orioles Encyclopedia should come with a a warning label for those who are now or ever were fans of the Baltimore Orioles: You Will Lose Many Hours Out of Your Otherwise Productive Life If You Buy This Book. Open it looking for some fact about some Oriole you remember and the next thing you know several hours will have passed as random thoughts send you scurrying from one entry to another. At each you will be delighted by combination of solid research and entertaining writing. This is not a dull, just-the-facts encyclopedia; it is amusing and insightful, written by someone who is clearly a fan of baseball but not so mesmerized by the game that he cannot poke fun at its foibles. Besides, any book that immortalized the name Drungo Hazewood belongs on the shelf of every Orioles fan.

"The Orioles Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and thorough book about the Orioles ever written. As a 50 year fan of the Orioles, and a batboy of the World Championship team(during two springs in Miami), I knew and remain friends with dozens of Oriole legends. This book features the most insightful and candid observations and anecdotes of the great (and not so great)players ever to don the orange and black.I have an extensive collection of rare Oriole atrifacts, some that trace back to the beginning of the 20th century, and this book is by far the best reference source I have ever seen or read. Mike Gesker made a near superhuman effort in collecting and researching the data as well as the amazingly thorough job in gathering some rare, behind the scene photographs of the Orioles over the last several decades. I heartily endorse this book as a must have for any Oriole fan, and really, for any baseball historian."

I found Mike Gesker's "The Orioles Encyclopedia" to be a well-researched and well-written book, one that evokes memories of being an Orioles fan for more than 40 years (beginning when I moved to Baltimore) -- through the thick of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and a couple of years in the 1990s through the thin of today. The author sent me back many more years to the time at age 12 in Arkansas when I first discovered the wonder that was baseball. Some of my early years in Arkansas wound up being connected to the Oriole years detailed in "Orioles Encyclopedia." It has been great fun making such discoveries. I recommend this book to Orioles fans in particular and all fans of baseball. Enjoy those memories.

This book is the finest and most complete book ever written about the Orioles. Every Orioles fan should own AT LEAST one copy of this book. The pictures in this book alone are worth the price of the book. i cannot stress how wonderful this book is. Any baseball fan would treasure this read.