Synopsis:
The obsessive reference for every baseball nut, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL is a comprehensive, original, devour-it-like-salted-peanuts single-volume encyclopedia that marries history and statistics and delivers them team by team. Organizing by teams gives the wide view—how do the Murderer’s Row Yankees compare to the Big Red Machine? The long view—what team has given the Red Sox the most trouble over the last 100 years? And the hidden view—name the team that went through all the 1990s without a Gold Glove winner. It’s how the game is played, and now, finally, it’s presented in the way the game is best understood.
Created by baseball historian Dennis Purdy, a true buff’s buff, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA offers the history of every existing major league baseball franchise told through narrative, bios, anecdotes, photographs, and the most comprehensive team statistics ever assembled in a single book. Every year’s record, standing, attendance, and primary starting lineup for each of baseball’s 30 franchises. Top-10 leader lists for every major category (and some minor ones), plus all-time won-loss records versus all opponents. All the awards—MVP, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, Gold Glove. Manager records. Post-season records. Even retired uniform numbers. But the stats are just the beginning—each chapter contains entertaining thumbnail biographies of every franchise’s key players, recalling, for example, how the game’s greatest shortstop, Honus Wagner, was ecruited when spotted throwing rocks across a river. And sprinkled throughout are spicy team facts, bizarre anecdotes, statistical anomalies, and little-known gems—like what Babe Ruth said to Lou Gehrig after hitting his “called shot” homerun in the 1932 World Series.
From the Back Cover:
Relish the game as never before, with a total immersion in the forest and the trees. Here’s the surprising evolution of the Atlanta Braves, the oldest continuous professional franchise in baseball. (No, it’s not the Reds.) The parallel phenomenon of the DiMaggio brothers, including how Joe of the Yankees dashed Red Sox brother Dom’s hopes of breaking his 56-game hitting streak. Every Cubs starting lineup since 1876, showing when Tinker to Lowe to Chance turned into Tinker to Evers to Chance, then Tinker to Evers to Saier. The Pirates backstory, and how the game’s greatest shortstop—Honus Wagner—was recruited when spotted throwing rocks across a river. At a glance, the staff of the World Champion ’54 Giants that rocked the elite Indians in four straight. And what Babe Ruth said to Lou Gehrig after his “called shot,” and Gehrig’s astonishing response. Every fan has a sweet spot of knowledge—their team, their time. Baseball historian Dennis Purdy performs the feat of marrying statistics, scholarship, biography, trivia, and anecdote to create a massively pleasurable work that is, in its whole, baseball’s sweet spot.
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