Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1930844018 ISBN 13: 9781930844018

Publisher: Total Sports, 2001

Synopsis

A comprehensive baseball reference offers exhaustive and up-to-date information on baseball players from the nineteenth century to the present, covering statistical leaders, lifetime records of players, team lineups, and other data.

About this title

Review:

Once the upstart reference for fans, Total Baseball, now in its sixth edition, has evolved into the official encyclopedia of Major League Baseball. It's not hard to see why. Like its older cousin, the Baseball Encyclopedia, it is a mammoth volume filled with yearly results, awards, detailed postseason and all-star accounts, and the complete career statistics of every major-league player through 1998. But while the Encyclopedia has basically remained a book of numbers, Total Baseball crams in hundreds of pages of words: there are essays on everything baseball. The lineup covers the bases from the traditional (team histories, baseball reporting, and the 400 best players) to the marvelously esoteric (baseball families, baseball movies, and women and baseball).

Sadly, some terrific veteran pieces--poet Donald Hall's provocative analysis of the national significance of "Casey at the Bat," an essay on baseball and the law, an account of Jackie Robinson's signing, and a comprehensive chronicle of rule and scoring changes--have been retired, so don't banish your Fifth Edition to left field. Happily, their replacements are equally all-star: a Robert Creamer essay on Casey Stengel, greater coverage of the game outside the United States, a thorough Bartlett's of baseball quotations, and Warner Fuselle's engaging history of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and other noted arias. Finally, a caveat: the player statistics are crammed in so tightly you'll wish Total Baseball included a magnifying glass. Still, squinting is a small price to pay for so Ruthian a chunk of baseball heaven. --Jeff Silverman

Review:

"If I'm ever stranded on a Pacific island, I hope a copy of Total Baseball washes up on the beach." -- Rob Neyer, ESPN.com Wednesday, March 21st

"The ultimate source for baseball information." -- David Plaut, USA Today Baseball Weekly, March 21, 2001

"Total Baseball" remains the single indispensable book that belongs in every baseball fan's library." -- Bruce Dancis, Sacramento Bee, April 8, 2001

"Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia, has published an updated seventh edition that is a tremendous addition to any sports library." -- Gordon Edes, Boston Globe, March 18, 2001

"[Total Baseball] is baseball's Old and New Testament in one volume." -- Allen Barra, Salon.com, April 18, 2001

About this edition

• Publisher: Total Sports
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1930844018
• ISBN 13: 9781930844018
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 2600
• Editor: Thorn John, Palmer Pete, Gershman Michael, Silverman Matthew, Lahman Sean, Spira Greg