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The Baseball Encyclopedia (1969): The…
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The Baseball Encyclopedia (1969): The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball (edition 1969)

by None (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
442456,019 (4.49)6
The classic reference for basketball statistics, past and presentCelebrating its tenth edition, The Baseball Encyclopedia is recognized worldwide as the authoritative source for baseball statistics. The Baseball Encyclopedia was first published in 1969 and has become the classic sports reference book, selling over half a million copies throughout its nine editions. With the tenth edition, the tradition continues of producing the finest baseball statistical volume ever. The Encyclopedia is the home of reliable, accessible, objective baseball stats and is known simply as "the Bible of Baseball".-- A complete listing of every one of the 14,000 men who have played in the major leagues and their single-season and lifetime records-- An alphabetical roster of all major league managers and their records-- A chronological listing of teams and their players Complete fielding stats for every, player who has played-- A Home/Road Performance Register-- Inning-by-inning line scores and summaries for all World Series, League Championship Series, Divisional Playoff Series, and All-Star Games-- A comprehensive register of career and single-season leaders Negro League statistics-- All-American Girls Professional Baseball League stats-- New to the tenth edition! All-Time Team Rosters -- a listing of the team roster for every franchise since 1876It's the Grand Slam of sports books, bigger and better with every edition. The Baseball Encycloped… (more)
Member:WhimsicalPagan
Title:The Baseball Encyclopedia (1969): The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball
Authors:None (Author)
Info:Macmillan / Information Concepts Inc. (1969)
Collections:Nonfiction, Your library
Rating:
Tags:baseball

Work Information

The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Major League Baseball by Joseph Reichler

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Showing 4 of 4
Can I give this ten stars? ( )
1 vote lateinnings | Jun 11, 2010 |
This book weighs 4.5 pounds. Four-point-five pounds of mostly raw statistical data sans statistical analysis on over sized coffee-table style pages with teensy margins, font size at most 7, printed on something like rice paper, only the paper is not opaque; the flimsy type of paper comprising most Bibles. This edition approaches 2,300 pages. That's 2,300 pages of raw baseball statistics. Imagine reading all seven volumes of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, only instead of reading about bucolic introspective meanderings throughout the lovely French countryside as remembered by a sickly, housebound young Frenchman, you read about nothing but home runs and earned run averages and balks, on pages tissue-thin, the tiny text printed all the way out to the edge of distant margins, printed practically off the edge of the page like "bleeds" (that's printer's lingo for you).

I washed and waxed one Saturday afternoon in 1982 my father's twenty-five-foot long Itasca mini-motor home in order to earn the dough to pay for this $29.99 baseball behemoth of behemoths, on sale at -- it was either B. Dalton or Waldenbooks, I believe. I've never worked so hard or with such purpose in my life; I really wanted that book--and fast!

So what's the big deal about a book one could just as easily use as a clunky dumb-bell filled with nothing but arcane baseball numbers dating back to 1861; a book dealing with often obscure, obfuscating percentages such as slugging % (total bases divided by at-bats) versus on-base-average (walks, hits, reached base on error, but *not* hbp (hit by pitch) or fc (fielder's choice) divided by at-bats; the stats correlated and itemized to every player in the history of Major League Baseball who ever played the game (included even if that player played in only one game, one inning for that matter) he's itemized like a nominal tax deduction for all time and eternity; so again, the question is: what's the big deal exactly?....

To this day, I do not know. I know only that the numbers and statistics about baseball fascinated my then burgeoning thirteen year old brain (as they do to this day, minus many brain cells), and that I was willing to spend seven sweltering, ungodly humid summer hours scrubbing and waxing and rinsing and drying with a shammy...what in hindsight amounted to nothing more than a rectilinear-ten-ton-monstrosity-on-double wheels, in order to obtain it, The Baseball Encyclopedia, which, if my division is correct, comes out to working for $4.28 an hour for a book weighing 4.5 pounds, or rather, working for 95 cents a pound per hour. ( )
13 vote absurdeist | Mar 21, 2009 |
Not a reading book at all, rather a sit on the couch and peruse for hours while watching the nightly ball game.

I've resisted buying this for years. Its long out of print, the statistics end in 1995, and the statistical methods used were eclipsed by the new SABRmetric measures long ago, and it's quite a tome, taking up loads of space on a bookshelf. Even though I can access everything I want online through Baseball Almanac or whatever, there is something reassuring and comforting about balancing this mammoth volume on my lap, and looking up statistics for Jimmy Austin, Hal Trosky, or try to figure out just a little bit more about Sigmund Jakucki. God, I love baseball.

This book can be practically stolen price wise at a decent used book store. ( )
  ksmyth | Apr 26, 2008 |
One of my proudest possessions: the first edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia, still regarded by many as the best (since they immediately started backtracking from the corrected records that upset so many people).
1 vote languagehat | Dec 18, 2005 |
Showing 4 of 4
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» Add other authors (35 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Joseph Reichlerprimary authorall editionscalculated
Gillette, GaryEditormain authorsome editionsconfirmed
Palmer, PeteEditormain authorsome editionsconfirmed
Deane, BillContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lahman, SeanContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Shea, StuartAssociate Editorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Silverman, MatthewAssociate Editorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Spira, GregAssociate Editorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
White, DougContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wolff, RickEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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The classic reference for basketball statistics, past and presentCelebrating its tenth edition, The Baseball Encyclopedia is recognized worldwide as the authoritative source for baseball statistics. The Baseball Encyclopedia was first published in 1969 and has become the classic sports reference book, selling over half a million copies throughout its nine editions. With the tenth edition, the tradition continues of producing the finest baseball statistical volume ever. The Encyclopedia is the home of reliable, accessible, objective baseball stats and is known simply as "the Bible of Baseball".-- A complete listing of every one of the 14,000 men who have played in the major leagues and their single-season and lifetime records-- An alphabetical roster of all major league managers and their records-- A chronological listing of teams and their players Complete fielding stats for every, player who has played-- A Home/Road Performance Register-- Inning-by-inning line scores and summaries for all World Series, League Championship Series, Divisional Playoff Series, and All-Star Games-- A comprehensive register of career and single-season leaders Negro League statistics-- All-American Girls Professional Baseball League stats-- New to the tenth edition! All-Time Team Rosters -- a listing of the team roster for every franchise since 1876It's the Grand Slam of sports books, bigger and better with every edition. The Baseball Encycloped

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