Customer Reviews

Total Baseball, Completely Revised and Updated: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia

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

 

 

I have read two previous editions of Total Baseball and this 8th edition is the very best. For all TB readers out there the 8th edition still has complete statisical player guide with the standard statistics baseball historian tend to expect. The newest stat added is the Win Shares for each season and carrier. Anyone would has read Bill James' Historical Baseball abstract is familiar with this stat.
What makes the 8th ed of TB a better book than all that have come before are the essays on both the historical progession of the game and on hot botton issues. Essays take on hot button subjects as the greatest team of all time (not the '27 Yanks) and whether Bonds is the greatest ever. Also included are essays from contemorary SPORT magizines on player profiles.
In short this book is simply the greatest as far as historical reference and as always is the greatest stat guide ever produced. 5 stars +

This is the best statistical resource I have seen. It is comprehensive; you will find just about anything you're looking for in here. All of the traditional statistics plus many of the analytical stats developed by the Society of American Baseball Research to determine more accurate measures of a players actual impact on winning games. It also includes a number of interesting articles on the evolution of the game, which anyone with an interest in baseball history will find invaluable. This reference tool is well worth the price.

I was once addicted to the Baseball Encyclopedia, but Total Baseball is even better. As with the former, Total Baseball provides the complete annual and career pitching and batting statistics of every man that ever played in a major league contest; from ancients like Cap Anson and the Delahanty brothers, to stars like Babe Ruth, DiMaggio and Aaron, to great no-names like Yam Yaryan, midget Eddie Gaedel, and Archibald "Moonlight" Graham of the 1905 NY Giants (and the movie "Field of Dreams"). But Total Baseball goes much further. First, it presents a lot of sabermetrics, the science of baseball stats developed by guru's like Bill James and Rod Thorn. Thus we get a host of scientific statistics like on-base percentages and OPS (on-base plus slugging). There are also seasonal attendance figures, post-season play, plus the starting lineups of every big league squad from the Cleveland Spiders of the late 1800's, to the 1904 New York Highlanders (Yankees), 1922 St. Louis Browns, 2003 Pittsburgh Pirates, etc. Then there are the all-time records, like most doubles in a career (Tris Speaker, 792) and a season (Earl Webb, 67), most strikeouts (Nolan Ryan, 5714 career, 383 season), etc. At 2,500 pages this is a rather massive book; you'll probably end up placing it on a table and pulling up a chair to read it (they probably should have divided it into two volumes). Still, this is an excellent reference and great reading for everybody from casual fans and to hardcore baseball addicts.

I was sorry to see that Total Baseball has apparently been discontinued, although increasingly such information is available on the internet. Still, this large and wonderful book is a treasure.

Love this book. I read it most every day. Here are some things in past editions I would like to see come back:

1. Playoff stats under the player's regular season stats verses a seperate section in the cack.
2. Pinch hit at-bats and hits return
3. Blown saves added back to the pitchers stats
4. Family connections. Used to have at least an "F" for family. Past additions also had "Brother of, Father of etc". Always found that interesting.

Little stuff but that is what makes the book fun. All the little things you can uncover in every read!