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Bill James

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract Paperback – June 13, 2003

by Bill James (Author)

308 ratings

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When Bill James published his original Historical Baseball Abstract in 1985, he produced an immediate classic, hailed by the Chicago Tribune as the “holy book of baseball.” Now, baseball's beloved “Sultan of Stats” (The Boston Globe) is back with a fully revised and updated edition for the new millennium.

Like the original, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is really several books in one. The Game provides a century's worth of American baseball history, told one decade at a time, with energetic facts and figures about How, Where, and by Whom the game was played. In The Players, you'll find listings of the top 100 players at each position in the major leagues, along with James's signature stats-based ratings method called “Win Shares,” a way of quantifying individual performance and calculating the offensive and defensive contributions of catchers, pitchers, infielders, and outfielders. And there's more: the Reference section covers Win Shares for each season and each player, and even offers a Win Share team comparison. A must-have for baseball fans and historians alike, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is as essential, entertaining, and enlightening as the sport itself.

Print length

1024 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Free Press
Publication date

June 13, 2003
Dimensions

7.38 x 1.7 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0743227220
ISBN-13

978-0743227223
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Baseball's most celebrated scholar is back in full flower with this revised and fully updated version of his influential 1985 masterwork.

About the Author

Bill James made his mark in the 1970s and 1980s with his Baseball Abstracts. He has been tearing down preconceived notions about America’s national pastime ever since. He is currently the Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, as well as the author of The Man from the Train. James lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with his wife, Susan McCarthy, and three children.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; Revised edition (June 13, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 1024 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0743227220
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0743227223
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.38 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.38 x 1.7 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #95,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #149 in Baseball (Books)

Customer Reviews:
308 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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R. Morton

The greatest baseball book of all time

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

Bill James began writing his baseball abstracts as a hobby, over 20+ years it ultimately led to this gargantuan tome on key (as in 1,000 plus) players in the history of baseball. Bill can be caustic, derogatory, arrogant, and callous but he can also be self-effacing, wry and willing to admit his imperfections. I don't necessarily agree with his listings here, they are skewed too much by a player's longevity rather than actual talent and yearly production, so that players I consider absolutely ordinary in my 55 plus years following baseball, and in some instances subpar, show up in places I would not expect them. He just looks at things differently than I do. But there is a lot of meat to this beyond James' stats (which are sometimes a little beyond me), and this is not a book consumed in one sitting. Apparently, this is James' final, crowning moment in baseball analysis, having sold out his expertise, as it were, to the Boston Red Sox.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Bill Reich

But Only 4 for the Kindle Edition

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2013

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I just got the Kindle version of this book. I already had it in harcover and I already had the first edition of the book. I want to comment on the Kindle-izing of the book first and then I have a few things to say about the book itself.
It is great to have this book on my Kindle. This is a great book to dip into when you want to take a break from your current reading. It is an important reference/resouce when analyzing or talking about baseball. But it is so physically big that it usually isn't there when you want to look at it. You just can't lug this monster around in case you need it.
On the other hand, some of that advantage is lost because the formatting into the Kindle version was far from perfect. The boxes where various matters are cordoned off from the main flow of the text are here just inserted and break up the text. I enjoyed every one of the boxes but I didn't stop reading the major articles to read them. I read them separately.
And this is only the second edition. There are stories and ideas absent from this edition that were vital. The distinction between peak and career value, and the brilliant essay showing how Mays and Mantle illustrated that distinction, were worth the price of admission. I can go back and read that in the first edition but it would be great to have it on my Kindle and people who don't have the first edition are going to miss it.
The Win Shares method he introduces, a way to evaluate ballplayers past and present, is ingenious and worth quite a lot. But I would hate to trade some of the stories and essays from the first edition for it.

13 people found this helpful

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Anonymous

Awesome

Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2001

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If you like baseball books, in depth analysis and have a keen interest in the history of the game ... you NEED this book.
Bill James' revision to his classic historical abstract weighs in at a hefty 1000 pages and a big price tag. But it's worth it. You really get two books.
Book I: A decade-by-decade look at the game. As James says in his preface, he's not trying to give times and dates. Each section gives the reader a feel for what baseball was like in that decade - who the popular players were, how they played, where they played. Who was the biggest player, the smallest player, which team had the best infield, best outfield, best pitchers. He gives an OJ Simpson award for each decade, a Clint Hartung award for the biggest flop, the Paul Krichell award for the dumbest trades and signings. He also details the biggest problems the game had in each decade. You can read a chapter and almost hear the fans debating Wagner vs. Cobb, commenting on what a jerk Rogers Hornsby was and venting frustration as New York teams dominated the 1950's. He also has one section on the Negro Leagues. The last section has his (brilliant) solutions to the problems the game has in the 90's.
Book II introduces James' new method of player evaluation -- Win Shares. A quantum leap forward in analysis, Win Shares quantifies everything a player contributes - pitching, hitting and defense -- in terms of how many WINS it brought his team. This corrects for park effects, different eras (you'll be surprised to learn how good those 60's hitters were) and is a massive improvement in evaluation of defense. He rates the top 100 players in history based on career value, peak value, clutch performance, etc. This top 100 includes 12 Negro League players and has some surprises (Oscar Charleston at #4). He rates the top 100 players at each position. Some of this can get dull when you get down to the low #'s. But you'll learn a lot, such as that the 1901 Beaneaters had the best pitching staff of the decade, that Arky Vaughn was the #2 all-time shortstop and that Craig Biggio and Barry Bonds are two of the best all-time at their position (this was written before Bonds' historic 2001 season and Biggio's 2001 comeback).
One last thing. Throughout the book, James' cites reference to other great baseball books. You could build an amazing baseball library just from his bibliography.
All of this comes with James' wit, insight and love of the game. He combines hard-boiled statistical analysis with an apprection of the intangible aspects of the game.

78 people found this helpful

Helpful

One of the great reference works for baseball

Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2006

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The New Bill James Historical Abstract is a must for anyone interested in baseball history. James gives a decade by decade description of what the game was like and how it has changed over the years. He also includes numerous essays addressing different issues confronting baseball (i.e., revenue sharing, competitive balance, speeding up play, etc.). Everything is insightful and interesting, even when the reader disagrees.

The heart of the book is James's ranking of players at each position by "Win Shares," which is James complex calculation for comparing players value over time and position. James includes a lengthy discussion of this concept and many other discussions of baseball statistics.

This is the sort of book you can just pick up and read as time permits. Some entries are very brief - some are inexplicable long (Ernie Lombardi for example, has an extremely long entry - much longer than many catchers ranked above him). Entries are long and short depending on the point James thinks the player's career illustrates.

In short, this book is crammed with interesting facts and insights, and is not to be missed.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

JWH

A Fantastic Collection of Baseball Writing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2014

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This is a magnificent book to browse through for a quirky and refreshing history of the game, the players who played it and how and why the game changed over the years. Bill James loves to explain why the 'accepted view' of things is wrong so there is always something to be surprised by. The book is split into two sections, the first being a run through of the history of baseball decade-by-decade, showing how different players, different ballparks, different rules and different organizations changed the game. Personally I found it fascinating to see just how much the rules and equipment, and in particular the ballparks, change how the players played the game and give each period its distinctive character. It also includes an equivalent section on the Negro Leagues and lots of pieces about various players and teams in the minor leagues. James specifically sets out to include both the broad sweep of the history, but also the little details of games and players which make the whole thing designed for the fans much more than the academics. The second section is an assessment of the top 100 ball players in each of the positions, using his 'Win Shares' formula (basically a way of calculating each individual players contribution to his team's victories - it gets explained in much more detail in the book). Again, it has lots of interesting details and anecdotes to flesh out the statistics.
The book is quite big and most readers will probably prefer to dip in and out. However, it does form a cohesive and logical whole which equally supports cover-to-cover reading.
I have both the hardback and the kindle version. The hardback version is brilliant. The kindle version, considered purely from the design point of view is only fair. There are occasions where tabulated information is hard to read, or in a place slightly distant from the text it refers too. Similarly, the sidebars which work so well in the hardback version haven't always been ported across whole to the kindle version, so there are times when there is a baseball anecdote interrupted by a discussion of 'Baseball Uniforms in the 1960s' in its entirety and then resumed. I can't think of an instance where this lost me entirely, but it did break the flow.
However, both versions are highly recommended to all baseball fans.

2 people found this helpful

A.D.M.

baseball writing at it's best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2001

Verified Purchase

If you appreciate the quality baseball writing around today (such as baseball prospectus) then you simply must own this book. I've recently started finding some of Bill James' older work (the Baseball Abstract series from the '80's) and this book picks up his legacy and then takes it further. James offers insights into each decade of baseball, breaking it down with interesting notes and stories that aren't just your typical "and then so and so won the world series", but actually bringing the era's to life. It is written engagingly, humourously, and it really is a joy to read. You can tell that James' still loves to dispel common (mis)conceptions about the game of baseball, and does it in thought provoking fashion. The second half of the book sees James rank the top 100 (!) players at EACH position. An impressive task, and one he carries off as you would expect.
This is the book of the year for the inquisitve baseball fan. Do not miss it.

14 people found this helpful

Alan Barrett

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a great browser book.

Andri

Easy read, lots of Stats

Reviewed in Canada on October 16, 2019

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Great read, so far. Great to learn more about the analytics of baseball

PompousMoose

Great read for those that can pick up a book ...

Reviewed in Canada on July 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

HUGE book... although it's been updated many times since the original publishing there are still a lot of tidbits of information on each page. Great read for those that can pick up a book and read a few pages at a time.

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