Out of Left Field: Over 1,134 Newly Discovered Amazing Baseball Records, Connections, Coincidences, and More!

Uninformed, misleading and lazily researched books like this only give baseball publishing a bad reputation.


3 base error   July 23, 1999
 6 out of 9 found this review helpful

This book is so filled with errors that the authors and editor should be ashamed. Some of the more glaring examples: they identify Gene Conley as the only man to play on a NBA and MLB championship team in the same city - Boston. While Conley did play on a world series winner it was the Milwaukee Braves in '57 - not the Boston Braves who left that city in '53. He did play for the NBA winning Celtics a little later. They also state that all world series games were played between 1947 and 1956 in New York City. They fail to remember that the famous Philadelphia Phillies Whiz Kids were in the '50 series. Those are just two of many unpardonable errors which riddle this book. An old fashioned editor with a little knowledge of baseball is needed. I hope Mr. Lyons, esq. is not as sloppy in his legal briefs as he was in compiling this mess.


Something here ain't kosher.   May 6, 1998
 4 out of 7 found this review helpful

This is another boonie dog book review from Wolfie and Kansas. While there is no canine angle to "Out of Left Field" by Jeffrey and Douglas Lyons, we have noted in prior reviews that we like to read books about humans playing fetch. On the whole, "Out of Left Field" is well above average for baseball trivia books. However, we are posting this review to show that even boonie dogs can catch an error if it is obvious enough.

Lyons and Lyons assert that Al Rosen, the 1953 AL MVP, was the first Jewish MVP. Hank Greenberg once said, "When you're playing, awards don't seem like much. Then you get older and all of it becomes more precious. It is nice to be remembered." Lyons and Lyons were not nice to the memory of the Hall of Famer and war hero who won the AL MVP award in 1935 and 1940.