The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues is the most ambitious book ever undertaken on "the other half of baseball history." For the first time, almost every man who ever batted or pitched from 1862 to 1948 is listed, along with his annual batting average or won-lost record. It will change forever the way American baseball history is perceived and written.

This book is the result of thousands of man-hours, both paid and volunteer, to ferret out and extract data from over 14,000 box scores. Almost every black paper published between was scoured, plus every white daily in cities with a Negro League team, and papers in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

The results have dispelled many long-held myths: Satchel Paige did not pitch in 3,000 games not win 1,000 of them...Josh Gibson did not hit 75 home runs in one years or 962 in a lifetime. (However, Josh would have hit 1,000 if he had come to bat as often as Hank Aaron).

It has also give recognition to many long-overlooked stars of North American baseball. Bill Foster, not Paige, is the all-time leader in victories; John Beckwith and Jud Wilson are the all-time leaders in batting averages.

The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues includes for the first time Latin American League games, where the rivalries forged in North America in the summer were continued with equal intensity in the winter.

In these pages fans can read for the first time of Mule Suttles' mammoth home run to win the 1933 East-West (All Star) game in the 11th inning, the prodigious home run paces of Suttles and Gibson that threatened to topple Ruth's 60-home run record a decade after it was set, of Rube Foster's heroics in the first black World Series of 1903 and Josh Gibson's mammoth Yankee Stadium home run in the black World Series in 1930.

The book includes details of every playoff and black World Series game, which were just as exciting as the gabled games of the white World Series. Is there anything in white history to equal the duel in the snow between Big Bill Foster and little Bullet Joe Rogan to settle the 1927 playoff - a duel won by Foster 1-0 and 5-0? The 1939 playoff battle between two future Hall of Fame catchers, the veteran Josh Gibson and the rookie Roy Campanella in a Series won by Campy's team? Or the moment in the 1942 black Series when Paige deliberately walked the bases loaded to pitch to Josh Gibson - then struck hom out? Had these happened in an integrated league, they would have dwarfed even the legend of Babe Ruth pointing to the bleachers, then slugging a homer in the 1932 white Series.

Perhaps most eye-opening are the dozens of box scores between Negro League stars and stars of the major white leagues. The blacks won 53 percent of these games, and black hitters batted the same against top white rivals in October as they ahd against the best black players from May to September. These include epic battles between Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Williams (Joe won 1-0)..between Ty Cobb and John Henry Lloyd (Lloyd won .500 to .369)..between Babe Ruth and Cristobel Torriente (the Cuban won, three home runs to none).

We also learn of the off-the-field heroes, such as pitcher Doc Sykes, who was in the center of the notorious trial of "the Scottsboro Nine," one of the greatest civil rights dramas of the twentieth century and Monarchs coach J.L. Wilkinson, who in the 1940s was forced to sit and watch while major league scouts raided his teams, with no intention of ever paying him.

In these pages the reader will find some of the most exciting baseball played in North America. Here is a whole new world waiting to be discovered by fans of all colors, young and old.