Total Baseball

They decided to add a whole bunch of hokey stats, while leaving out some of the vital one's. Come on guys..."adjusted" batting averages instead of pinch hitting stats? A seperate section for (incomplete) post-season stats, rather than listing them with regular season stats?

Let's bet back to basics and skip the nonsense!


The best baseball reference book   May 18, 2002
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Total Baseball is definitely a must for every baseball fan, from hardcore to casual. And it can be a gateway for many who haven't enjoyed the blessings of this beautiful game. There's everything you need to know: from team histories, great essays on the Negro Leagues. There's stuff for the stat nut as well: from sabermetrics to a handy guide on how to score a game, some insights on Women and Baseball, and of course, the hefty, precise and so accurate register of every player in Major League history. There's even a chapter on International Baseball results, that suprisingly, does NOT include the champions of the Venezuelan League, and does have the Dominican and Mexican team champions. Anyway, all in all, if you love baseball or simply you want to understand baseball, this book is for you.


Yearly Update is needed...   March 17, 2002
 3 out of 8 found this review helpful

This is the Holy Writ of baseball's statistical gurus. The problem is that they ohly update about every other year. As the "OFFICIAL" tome of MLB, the least they could do is release an update after each season.

This book rates every player against his own and other eras. The highest ranked player NOT in the Hall of Fame is the great Cubs shortstop Bill Dahlen.

That said, 2002 is the year, Cub fans. The ghost of Bill Dahlen is back, looking like Alex Gonzalez! Play Ball!


One glaring problem   January 29, 2002
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is a vital book if one is a serious baseball fan. It has all the key (and not so key) stats from every season of big league ball. It also has team histories, greatest player profiles, and an overview of the game's history by John Thorn. So yes, I recommend this. However....
The editors made a decision to revert to the 1876 and 1887 scoring methods. (In 1876 walks were outs; In 1887, they were hits). So Tip O'Neill is now listed as having the best batting average ever (.492 in 1887).
While I disagree, I could respect the decision if it were consistent. However, the editors themselves can't even agree. In the Braves' team history, it says that Hugh Duffy's .440 mark in 1894 is the best average ever. This completely contradicts the book's listing of all-time top averages.
Furthermore, saves did not become a stat until 1969, so if Thorn & Co. were serious about going with how things were scored in a certain year, there would be no saves listed before that season.
Finally, if it is revealed that batting averages from a given year were in error, the correct totals are listed instead. But (and this is just plain nuts), if the correct totals result in a change to the batting champion, they list the person with the lower average first! For instance, for the year of the Cobb/Lajoie controversy, it lists the batting leaders as:
Cobb .383
Lajoie .384
Total Baseball recognizes that Paul Hines led the NL in average, home runs and RBI the same year. Yet it refuses to list him as a Triple Crown winner because that year it was erroneously believed he did not lead the league in average! Such silliness is not in keeping with an otherwise excellent reference.


Don't Leave Home Without It   December 13, 2001
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is without a doubt the best baseball reference book you can buy until the next edition is published. It's got the statistics of every player from every season from 1871 to 2000, as well as a number of excellent essays about the history of the game and those who played it. Those essays are enjoyable and informative, as are the world series and playoff accounts and the awards register, but the real triumph of the tome is the player register, pitcher register, annual record, and all-time leaders sections. This is where the hot stove beauty of baseball meets its ultimate argument settler. And even given its ultimate status, there remain some arguments that evolve from its numbers. Did Cap Anson win the NL's batting title in 1887 with his .421 average (counting walks as hits), or did Sam Thompson have the NL's best batting average at .472 (not counting walks as hits). As of this edition, John Thorn and Pete Palmer say that Anson won the batting title and had the best batting average. In all previous editions they stated that Thompson deserved these honours. Their argument in this edition is that Anson won the batting title fairly by the rules of the day and that it is not for us to take away this crown retroactively. In this they are correct, but they have gone too far. While Anson cannot justifiably be stripped of his batting title, it is obvious that the NL's best batting average in 1887 belonged to Sam Thompson. Similarly, while Abner Dalrymple may have won the NL's batting title by the rules of the day in 1878 with his .354 average, it is obvious that Paul Hines had the higher batting average at .358. Dalrymple cannot have his title stripped from him, but we should acknowledge that Hines had the higher batting average. Ultimately, while good-intentioned, Thorn and Palmer's decision obscures - instead of clarifying - the historical record. In fact, they are not even consistent with their application of the decision. They state in the glossary (and I think elsewhere) that in some of professional baseball's early years pitchers were awarded an assist for strikeouts (unlike the current practice). However, they have decided that they will not follow this practice despite the fact that their decision regarding batting averages in 1876 and 1887 necessitates that they do so. Quite frankly, I'm glad that they do not, because doing so would only similarly muddify the historical record. I fear that the reason for the decision stems from the status of "Total Baseball" as the Official Encyclopaedia of Major League Baseball. As a result, they are hamstrung by the decisions rendered by the chowderheads who have run Major League Baseball since its formation. This means that they follow Major League Baseball's hysterically ludicrous decision not to consider the National Association (1871-1875) a major league, despite the fact that they admit that it should in fact be considered as such. Also, I would like to see the players and teams and seasons of the International Association (1877-1878) included in the registers. It was not a minor league, as even this book sporadically attests, although Bob Hoie does acknowledge that fact in the first paragraph of his fine essay about the minor leagues. This league saw itself as being in direct competition with the National League, despite having the flawed structure that doomed the National Association. As such, it should be viewed as a major league, regardless of what Major League Baseball would erroneously have us believe. This would place baseball's first major league African-American ballplayer forward by six years to Bud Fowler's appearances for the Lynn (Massachusetts) Live Oaks in 1878, and would put the first pennant outside of the United States ahead by 115 years to the London (Ontario) Tecumsehs of 1877.

Also, I must take umbrage at the decision to arbitrarily devalue the performances of players in the Union Association and Federal League. Their arguments are impeccable but irrelevant. Even if these leagues were inferior, they were still major leagues and their games counted for just as much as did those of the National League, American Association, and American League. If they take this stand, why not also devalue the National League and American Association of 1890, or the NL and AL of 1942-1944. These leagues also had inferior talent; why not arbitrarily devalue them as well?

I am very disappointed by the lack of an all-inclusive fielding register, and the lack of pitcher batting, but I do understand that the economics of space must be acceded to. Nevertheless, it would be nice if Thorn and Palmer would provide us with a website from which we could access this data (sort of an unpublished appendix). I don't ask that they place the entire record online, but for the sake of 'total'-ness I do ask that they make the information accessible for those of us who need to know that Joaquin Andujar had 32 strikeouts in his 57 at bats of 1979, while turning two double plays in that same year.

Complaints aside, this is an excellent book that is truly magnificent. I don't envy Thorn and Palmer in their task of trying to please millions of baseball fans who demand nothing short of perfection. As with umpires, we demand that Thorn and Palmer be perfect, and then we expect them to continue to improve. Amazingly, they somehow manage to do so.