The Red Sox Fan Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to be a Red Sox Fan or to Marry One [Paperback]

Leigh Grossman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2005

Containing everything from crucial stats to tips on restaurants and Fenway-area parking, this is an essential reference book for Sox fans new and old.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

What made me come up with the idea for this book? The Red Sox Fan Handbook is the book I wish I'd had when the team first captured my imagination. It's easy to find a book about stats, or a dry analysis of a baseball team's chances. It's much harder to find the folklore of a team--not just who the important players were, but why people still care about them, what brought them to life for other fans watching games last year, a dozen years ago--or a hundred years ago. This is a book about Ted Williams and Babe Ruth and Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra, but it's also a book about Ed Jurak catching a rat in his glove, and Tom Maggard dying just at the brink of the major leagues. There are stories about more than 350 players in this book--some of them famous, some of them funny, some of them tragic, some of them just about the lives of people that we care about, or that previous generations of fans cared about. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Leigh Grossman is an editor, writer, reviewer, and college instructor. He is the president of Swordsmith Productions, a publisher, book development, and book production company. In addition, he teaches writing and science fiction at the University of Connecticut. Grossman has authored seven books, and has reviewed books for Absolute Magnitude, Horror magazine, and Wavelengths. He lives in northeast Connecticut with his wife, Lesley McBain, and the world's surliest cats. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: Rounder Books; Updated edition (March 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579401104
• ISBN-13: 978-1579401108
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,445,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NEW, BEAUTIFUL, & DEFINITIVE (for now)!!!!!!!, April 5, 2005

By 

Sound/Word Enthusiast (Rhode Island, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Sox Fan Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to be a Red Sox Fan or to Marry One (Paperback)

This book has only been on my coffee table for a few days, and I've already spent countless hours delving into the the amazing amount of information it contains. The player bios are pithy and engaging, and with something like 400 players represented, could keep you busy all day. The section on statistics is fantastic -- I was always a bit confused as to how they were used by coaches and scouts, and now have a much better understanding. The section about the quirks of Fenway was fascinating...and there is sooooooo much more that I can't even begin to describe here.

Please note -- most of the reviews below are for the previous edition. In terms of readability, style, look, and content, this edition is the definitive one. It's shockingly up-to-date, and despite the amazing amount of stuff, is well laid-out and easy to just pick up and read. Which is what you or any other devoted Sox fan should do...

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, March 19, 2001

By 

Jennybean (Somewhere in New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Sox Fan Handbook (Paperback)

I'm so excited I am the first person to review this book-- it's great! I especially like all the anecdotes by the fans... they add a lot! If you are a fan of the Red Sox, you should definitely have this book. It's the best baseball book I've ever read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars don't confuse this book with another similar title, May 7, 2005

By 

Charles Pinkston "Chas" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Sox Fan Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to be a Red Sox Fan or to Marry One (Paperback)

I bought another book by mistake, at a bookstore, when what I had wanted was this one.

The name of the other book is THE BOSTON RED SOX FAN BOOK. It is by four authors. Despite this one having four authors, and the Red Sox Fan Handbook having just one, the Red Sox Fan Handbook has four times as much information. It also costs a few dollars more.

The other book has lots of space-fillers, most of them seemingly copied right out of the Red Sox Media Guide, even to using the same style of type presentation in the records section. There's nothing wrong with the book, per se. It's easier to read that the Red Sox Media Guide, though with much less detail. But it's just sort of lightweight.

This book - the Red Sox Fan Handbook - is far better. Its best feature are the individual player profiles. It has a couple of hundred pages - the heart of the book - which presents very readable profiles of most of the key players in Red Sox history, right up to present players like Abe Alvarez, who's pitched all of one game so far. It's a great deal of fun, and well worth the few extra dollars. Trust me, if you placed the two books side by side, you wouldn't hesitate.

I give the other book a "3" because like I said, it's not a bad book. This one is so much better.