Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #378079 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1008 pages

Customer Reviews

baseball writing at it's best
If you appreciate the quality baseball writing around today (such as baseball prospectus) then you simply must own this book. I've recently started finding some of Bill James' older work (the Baseball Abstract series from the '80's) and this book picks up his legacy and then takes it further. James offers insights into each decade of baseball, breaking it down with interesting notes and stories that aren't just your typical "and then so and so won the world series", but actually bringing the era's to life. It is written engagingly, humourously, and it really is a joy to read. You can tell that James' still loves to dispel common (mis)conceptions about the game of baseball, and does it in thought provoking fashion. The second half of the book sees James rank the top 100 (!) players at EACH position. An impressive task, and one he carries off as you would expect.

This is the book of the year for the inquisitve baseball fan. Do not miss it.

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
An absolutely superb piece of work. If you are at all interested in the history of the game, and the attributes and skills that make-up winning ballplayers, (Whether casually, or as a full blown anorak), this is absolutely the book for you. I have read Bill James before (in the also excellent "Politics of Glory"), and had very high expectations of this book, but even these were exceeded. There is something to hold your attention on every page, and the way in which the author explodes common myths, or assesses the true worth of underrated players left me amazed at his depth of knowledge, and powers of analysis. He always presents his point in an interesting, balanced, but ultimately convincing manner. The man is a genius!

Finally, the way the book is structured is perfect for dipping in and out of, an added attraction for people like myself with two young children!

Just buy it right now
If you're interested in baseball, this is an essential book; it's tempting to stop the review right there and simply direct you to the "Add to Basket" button. For your money, you get a huge volume that effectively combines two books: in the first half, a decade-by-decade history of the sport, charting its evolution, then in the second half James applies his new statistical metric, "Win Shares" - an attempt to compute the contribution an individual player makes to his team's record and thus his overall value compared to others of different teams or different eras - to compiling lists of the 100 best players at each position. As previous readers of James's work will know - or, indeed, anyone who's simply aware of his guru-like status among some baseball fans will guess - James is reluctant simply to pass on received opinions and is always ready to sink his teeth into a woolly generalisation or piece of conventional wisdom and ask its upholders to justify it with reference to facts and numbers. Along the way, he finds time for all sorts of humourous, cranky or opinionated diversions - for each decade, for example, we get a few particularly strange names picked out, and essays on particular questions that the decade poses (are we justified in calling the various shortlived organisations that preceded or paralled the National League in the late nineteenth century "major leagues" in terms of quality of play, for instance?). It's a delight to read it cover to cover or just to dip in - it's like having a long conversation during a game with an opinionated eccentric friend who knows an enormous amount and is prone to use his knowledge to launch huge speculations that demand you argue about them. Is there anything sports fans like better than arguing about the game - particularly when the questions can't ever be given a definitive answer? Is Roger Clemens better than Walter Johnson? Nolan Ryan - overrated? What do we think of the save statistic, or of RBI, as indicators of a player's worth? Let the debates commence...