Customer Reviews

Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, Fifth Edition

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The complete baseball reference tool. More than just stats are in this book. From ballparks, to all-star games to umpires, it's all in there. It may be a bit too big to travel with at times, but there is a lot in there.

This is a vital book if one is a serious baseball fan. It has all the key (and not so key) stats from every season of big league ball. It also has team histories, greatest player profiles, and an overview of the game's history by John Thorn. So yes, I recommend this. However....
The editors made a decision to revert to the 1876 and 1887 scoring methods. (In 1876 walks were outs; In 1887, they were hits). So Tip O'Neill is now listed as having the best batting average ever (.492 in 1887).
While I disagree, I could respect the decision if it were consistent. However, the editors themselves can't even agree. In the Braves' team history, it says that Hugh Duffy's .440 mark in 1894 is the best average ever. This completely contradicts the book's listing of all-time top averages.
Furthermore, saves did not become a stat until 1969, so if Thorn & Co. were serious about going with how things were scored in a certain year, there would be no saves listed before that season.
Finally, if it is revealed that batting averages from a given year were in error, the correct totals are listed instead. But (and this is just plain nuts), if the correct totals result in a change to the batting champion, they list the person with the lower average first! For instance, for the year of the Cobb/Lajoie controversy, it lists the batting leaders as:
Cobb .383
Lajoie .384
Total Baseball recognizes that Paul Hines led the NL in average, home runs and RBI the same year. Yet it refuses to list him as a Triple Crown winner because that year it was erroneously believed he did not lead the league in average! Such silliness is not in keeping with an otherwise excellent reference.

After visiting the Total Baseball website, and reading glowing reviews by others who read the book, I was hopeful that Total Baseball would be the end-all of statistical tomes. I was completely disappointed. Fielding statistics are almost non-existant. Hitting and pitching stats are pared down to a bare minimum of the common ones. The web site carries more thorough batting and pitching stats for free. I guess now that Total Baseball is the official book of Major League Baseball, they decided to do away with the effort that got them there in the first place. This wouldn't be the first time people got lazy once they figured they were all that. I was so disgusted that I returned the book. I wish they would put the complete batting, pitching, and fielding stats on a CD and sell it, and get rid of this annoying piece of weight training equipment. At least put a handle on it for easier carrying!

I'd like to thank the writers for giving me stats like homeruns allowed by pitcher, and a few others that are not included in the Baseball Encyclopedia, which also has its strong points. I like Total Baseball's new stats like Batting Runs and Total Player Rating. Interestingly, they make a case that Mickey Mantle should have won the MVP far more often than he did. I also like the attention this book gives to the original pro league, the National Association.

I make a statistically-based game, played with dice, that reflects all of the available stats on all players from the past. This book, along with the Baseball Encyclopedia and the new book from Stats Inc., are terrific together.

For babseball statistics nuts, "Total Baseball" is as good as it gets.

"Total Baseball" is fantastic, pure and simple. It does have its short-comings, of course (for example, I agree that full, basic fielding statistics are a necessity, especially since the authors' fielding runs statistic is very flawed; it would also be great if the book had a catalog of trades, like the "Encyclopedia" has had), but it more than makes up for these minor faults with some of the best statistics available and almost 300 pages devoted to original history, analysis and opinion. This book helps settle old arguments, but it never fails to incite new (but always more informed) feuds as well. New hall-of-fame caliber players (just look at Cupid Childs's stellar career!) make themselves known to the reader, and inspire further investigation into the history of the game: Why has Childs been overlooked? How did he turn the still evolving rules of the 1890s to his advantage?) This is truly a Bible, and, along with fresh "Baseball Prospectus" editions in the years that intervene between new editions, makes up the cornerstone of my baseball library.

An excellent resource for baseball statistics and history. The "Sabermetrics" mathematical anaylis is a bit over the top for the average fan, but not intrusive. Layout of the pages is very good--very readable. This edition adds rosters of each team for each year and selected highlights for each season (one page for each season). Historical articles give copious background to the sport. Surpasses Macmillan's Baseball Encyclopedia in its essentials--though the switch to this as the "official" encyclopedia of the MLB has rewritten some history without comment (taking a batting title away from Ty Cobb, redoing statistics in light of rules of early baseball). Binding of this large volume is not of the high quality of previous editions and the pages seen to get thinner and thinner with each edition. CD-ROM included, but for Windows only

I am doing my own study on baseball's greatest players, this book has been invaluable in this regard. The narratives are generally well-written and the statistics layout is superb. The explanation of the statistics is complete. The stats include the important common stats + Total Baseball's own stats to measure hitting, pitching, and fielding effectiveness relative to other players, both for each season and the player's career.

I do wish, though, that they had retained the pitching statistic called "Wins above team." Over a pitchers career it shows clearly how much a pitcher tended to help or not help his team. Oh well, the book is not perfect. I hope they come out with an Edition 7 soon which wraps up the last century.

Total Baseball is indeed an awesome book for those of us that want to know as much as we can about the game, all the way down to the most minute stats. I own several different editions of the book, starting with the second. The only thing that prevents Total Baseball from being an Upper-deck blast is that it doesn't have stats for the Negro Leagues. With the connections that Total Sports has, one would think that they would be able to print stats for the Negro Leagues, or at least yearly standings. I must say that I am dismayed that they shortened the History of Baseball section and removed the fielding stats.

"Total Baseball" is the most comprehensive baseball book ever published. Period. EVERYTHING you would ever need to know about the history of the game you can find it here. Complete statistical analysis, individual and team, dating back to the 19th century, box scores of all World Series games ever played, starting lineups for every major league team since 1876, and wonderful articles at the front of the book. No basenball library can be considered complete without "Total Baseball"