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| Baseball: |
| The Biographical Encyclopedia |
| Edited by David Pietrusza, Matt Silverman, and Michael Gershman |
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| From Amazon.com Baseball wonks rejoice! Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia is here with information about the men behind the magic numbers 755, 70, 56, 1.12, and 4,256. This weighty tome presents 2,000 capsule biographies of players, Negro Leaguers, umpires, executives, minor leaguers, owners, and broadcasters. All the big names—Aaron to Zisk—are included in this treasure trove, as are some lesser-known figures such as D.L. Adams (who has a pretty strong claim as "the father of baseball"), Bill Klem ("the Babe Ruth of umpires"), Branch Rickey (who signed Jackie Robinson to the major leagues), and Charles "Victory" Faust (the New York Giants' good luck charm and occasional pitcher, with no wins, losses, saves, walks, or strikeouts, and an ERA of 4.50, in two innings pitched). Each entry includes cumulative statistics, dates and places of birth and death, and a picture of the subject. The descriptions are warm, if not effusive, celebrating the achievements of the game's greats as well as highlighting the positive contributions of some less fondly remembered by history. Fred Merkle, for example, best known for the "Merkle Boner," is described as a fine player who performed well in six World Series. An excellent addition to any baseball fan's library, destined to be shelved alongside Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball. —M. Stein |
| DAVID PIETRUSZA is co-author of Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball and has served as editor-in-chief of Total Sports and president of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). He is the author of several baseball books, including Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, winner of the CASEY Award as best baseball book of 1998, and co-edited The Total Baseball Catalog. MATTHEW SILVERMAN served as a senior editor for Total Sports. He co-edited Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball and Total Football and six Total Football offshoots, namely Total Cowboys, Total Packers, Total Steelers, Total 49ers, Total Quarterbacks, and Total Super Bowl. Formerly an editor at Variety, he edited Total Mets. MICHAEL GERSHMAN is co-author of Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball and author of ten baseball books including Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark, winner of the CASEY Award as best baseball book of 1993. Editor-in-chief of the biographical component of Microsoft’s Complete Baseball CD-ROM, he founded the Total Sports company with John Thorn. He passed away in January 2000. |
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| From USA Today Baseball Weekly Two thousand personalities are featured in Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia (Total/ Sports Illustrated: $49.95). As you would expect every person enshrined in the Hall of Fame is covered, along with anyone who ever won a batting, home run or pitching title, or any other significant year-end award. Top stars of the Negro leagues and minors who never even reached the bigs also appear. But what really gives this massive reference source its fizz are many of the other selections— executives, broadcasters, one-shot-wonders and cultural pioneers who made contributions to the game's history. For a book intended primarily as a reference guide, much of the writing surpasses standard academic exposition. Journeyman slugger Steve Bilko is described as a man built like "a packing crate for farm machinery" We learn how average players with terrific nicknames earned their monikers: Hollis "Sloppy Thurston was actually the most nattily attired pitcher of his era. And size wasn't the reason why Bill Skowron was known as Moose. As a youngster, neighborhood kids insisted the future Yankees first baseman bore an uncanny resemblance to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Management adversaries Donald Fehr and Scott Boras are granted lengthy bios, as well as media figures Jerome Holtzman, Vin Scully and pioneer TV director Harry Coyle. Within the biographical summaries are delicious nuggets: Steve Yeager is test pilot Chuck Yeager's nephew; Mario Mendoza's lifetime batting average was above the “Mendoza Line"; and catcher Bo Diaz was killed when he was struck by lightning while installing a satellite dish. —USA Today Baseball Weekly, June 14, 2000 |
| From The Village Voice Together with Total Baseball, the statistical encyclopedia, this book comprises the standard baseball kit to be taken to a desert island—in fact, taken together, they practically weigh as much as an island (Total Baseball comes in at 2538 pages). It would be quicker to list those who aren't in here than those who are, except that I haven't found anyone yet who isn't. Every Hall of Famer, of course, and every important baseball executive and commissioner, but also Eddie Gaedel (the midget with the 1.000 on-base percentage), Jack Norworth (who wrote the lyrics to guess what song), and the greatest of all baseball fiction writers, Ring Lardner. This volume is clearly not meant to be digested in one or even a few sittings. It's the type of work that rewards simply opening it to any old page. Here's an excerpt from the Roberto Clemente entry, flipped to at random: "To deal with his physical problems, Clemente relied on a Puerto Rican chiropractor, Arturo Garcia, who 'rubs on a potent orange ointment called Atomic Balm, "cauterizes" tendons with a black plastic cylinder that emits crackling blue sparks, and heats aching muscles with a small infrared lamp.' Several times Clemente infuriated Pirates management by shunning medical experts in Pittsburgh, instead relying on Dr. Garcia and his methods." And Jackie Jensen: "Unable to control his panic at airports he jumped the team on April 29, 1961, and hired a nightclub hypnotist to help him with his problem. The hypnotist later theorized that the fear of flying was 'merely a subterfuge. Jackie needed the fear as an excuse to get home and patch up his marriage.' " I don't want to overstate the case, but it's possible that the last time so much essential information was gathered in one volume was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. |
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| —Allen Barra |
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| "Pleasantly presented and written . . . it belongs . . . on all comprehensive baseball reference shelves." |
| —Library Journal |