The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball

Cited in BCL3 and Sheehy . New edition of the standard reference to the major leagues (first published in 1969). This monumental work opens with a brief history of the game, MVP awards, Rookie of the Year awards, no-hit games, commissioners, leading single season and lifetime pitching and batting leaders, the teams and their players (order of finish year-by-year, line ups, team stats, managers...), player and pitcher registers (an alphabetical list of batting and fielding records some 1,700 pages), the Negro Leagues register, World Series and Championship playoffs, all-star games.... The modest price testifies to the very large number of copies printed. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

The seventh edition of this vital work was hailed in Mike Shannon's Diamond Classics ( LJ 8/89) as "the best and most complete record book . . . on any single game or sport." This eighth edition has revised, updated, and enlarged the 1988 version both in physical size and content. Along with team and player records and special achievements, rules, and sidelights as in the previous edition, the new work introduces complete fielding records, new and improved home/road records, a section on star Negro League players, and a new introductory history of the game. Succeeding the late Joe Reichler as editor, Wolff has assembled a staff of first-rate researchers and writers; a random check of 20 records revealed eight had been updated. Although it is regrettable that umpires are not covered, this thorough revision is an essential reference source for any sports collection.
- Morey Berger, formerly with Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.