PRAISE FOR THE BASEBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bill James, best selling author of the Historical Baseball Abstract and godfather of
Sabermetrics
There are many people who say that the era of print encyclopedias has passed. Let us hope that Lucifer is saving those people a nice warm spot. I want a bumper sticker: You can have my
Baseball Encyclopedia when you tear it from my cold, dead hands. Sure, you can stumble across Cliff Dapper in cyberspace, but what are the odds? If you don't have a print encyclopedia, what are your real chances of discovering that Milo Candini could actually hit? Major league players don't deserve the wispy, ephemeral immortality of buzzing electrons; they deserve the cold, marble permanence of black ink on white pages. You owe it to every baseball player you hated as a child to buy this book and confirm that Tommy Boggs was every bit as bad as you thought he
was.
Peter Gammons, Major League Baseball reporter and columnist for
The Boston Globe, ESPN, ESPN Magazine, and ESPN.com
Peter Palmer is the true guru of Sabermetrics.
Dr. Andrew Zimbalist, award winning sports economist and
best-selling author of May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and
Public Policy
An invaluable and indispensable resource for any self-respecting
baseball nut. With this new edition, Gillette and Palmer are two giant
steps closer to Cooperstown
Alan Schwarz, senior writer at Baseball America and
columnist, ESPN.com
ON PALMER/GILLETTE
There are no better caretakers of baseball’s statistical history
than Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette. Their passion and precision are
unmatched.
ON THE BOOK ITSELF
A great baseball encyclopedia is like a great umpire – it keeps
order while letting the game shine through. This book does just that,
allowing baseball’s wonderful statistical history dazzle you with
every turn of the page.
ON THE STATS
Let’s face it, the days of batting averages and RBIs are long
gone—fans today want on-base percentage, Range Factor, normalized
ERA’s and more. This book is the ultimate argument settler.
RANDOM THOUGHT
There are two things that every American male dreams about getting.
Marilyn Monroe, and a stat line in a baseball encyclopedia.
Michael Lewis, best-selling author of Money Ball: The Art
of Winning an Unfair Game
If they ever built a Hall of Fame to baseball analysts, Pete
Palmer would have his own wing. This encyclopedia is a treasure for
anyone who wants to argue about the baseball past. There may be other
places you can find Bunny Brief's on-base-percentage but none I'd trust
so well.
Steve Gietschier
, Senior
Managing Editor, Research for Sporting
News
Serious
students of baseball have gone far too long without a comprehensive
statistical encyclopedia. But as a famous sports fan once said, albeit
in another context, "Our long national nightmare is over."
Finally.
Macmillan published the last edition of its
Baseball Encyclopedia in 1996, and the seventh edition of Total
Baseball appeared in 2001. This book, compiled by Pete Palmer and
edited by Gary Gillette, makes the wait almost worth it.
This
new Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia is terrific, chock full of new and
fascinating material, easy to use, and priced no more than the cost of
two hot dogs and a couple of beers at the old ball yard.
Rob Neyer, ESPN.com columnist and co-author (with Bill James) of
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers
The new Baseball Encyclopedia is the game’s best value since the Yankees bought Babe Ruth!”
Paul Hagen, national baseball writer for The Philadelphia Daily News and
former president of the Baseball Writers Association of America
The Baseball Encyclopedia is the ultimate argument-solver. I can't imagine a sports bar or real baseball fan without one. That would be like a hitter going to the plate without his bat.
Every page has the potential to trigger a baseball memory. Going through the entries is like a treasure hunt. You never know what nuggets you'll
unearth.
Ken Rosenthal, Senior Baseball Writer, The Sporting News
Pete
Palmer and Gary Gillette have made the 2004 Baseball Encyclopedia the
most informative, compelling edition yet. Their introduction of several
innovative statistics provides fresh insight on players from every
generation. With sabermetric analysis becoming increasingly prominent,
the Encyclopedia reflects the intellectual revolution that is
transforming the sport.
Sean Forman, Editor and president, Baseball-Reference.com
Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer are two of the top names in baseball statistics and analysis. They have impeccable reputations for completeness and accuracy. Their body of work in Sabermetrics has been among the most important and lasting during the past thirty years. Fans of their previous books will enjoy the new data including catchers’ stolen base data, pitcher run support, and a much improved analysis of fielding ability. The player pages are as always easy to read and packed more information per square inch and per pound than any other reference work.
The field has been waiting for a new encyclopedia for several years and they have delivered their best work yet at their best price yet.
Mat Olkin, writer and editor for USA TODAY Sports Weekly and author of the annual
Baseball Examiner
“The highest evolution of the single-volume baseball reference, complete with cutting-edge performance measures. Baseball fans haven't been able to get this much for a double-sawbuck since baseball cards were a quarter a pack.”
Keith Woolner, Editor and author of the annual Baseball Prospectus
Despite the proliferation of baseball statistics in the online world, there are times where nothing can take the place of having a book in your hands. Having such a comprehensive reference such as this one will be a pleasure to thumb through. I particularly appreciated the thoroughness of the defensive statistics (having games by LF-CF-RF), blown saves for all pitchers, and the mix of raw (traditional) statistics, with more Sabermetric measures. The concise biographical information, including relatives who played in the majors, is well done, too.
I own several editions of Total Baseball and the Macmillan Encylopedia, and am sure that this book would fit right in with them on my bookshelf.
John Zajc, Executive Director, Society for American Baseball Research
I am pleased that I have been wrong over the past few years in opining that a print product of the encyclopedia may never appear again, and am very excited that Barnes & Noble has chosen to make the book extremely affordable.Lovers of the National Pastime can celebrate in 2004 with the release of
The Baseball Encyclopedia -- all the baseball information you need ready to be cradled in your hands.
Scan the pages of the registers and learn about players you never heard of before, or others who rekindle old memories of baseball in your younger days.
It really is a treat to be able jump back and forth between players' records and compare their performances.
