This book could be subtitled `Random Thoughts about the 100 Greatest Players at Every Position by Bill James'. This tome contains a wealth of information for anyone interested in the historical and statistical aspects of baseball. It is really three books in one. In the first section, titled `The Game', James takes a historical tour through each decade of baseball, discussing the players, the era, some of the important (or infamous) events. The second, and most important, section is entitled `The Players'. James gives his ratings for each of the 100 best players at each position with some comments after each entry. This is the real meat of the book. It isn't the kind of thing that you are likely to read straight through. You'll pick up this book and read a few pages now and then, or just thumb through various sections. The final section, `Reference' discusses James WinShares system in action by comparisons of various historical teams, some great, some terrible, and some mediocre.
Quite simply, I don't know how anyone can give this book less than five stars. It doesn't matter if you agree with James on the rating of every player, or whether Mantle was better than Mays. You'll realize that there is/was a lot more to baseball than you ever knew! One thing I found most interesting about this book was James' discussions of players I thought were great when I was a boy. It is interesting to see how my boyhood notions compare with James' statistical arguments. It is also interesting to see many players that I perceived as average/decent in the top 100 at their position. A second thing that I found fascinating about this book was James' discussion of the importance of offense versus defense. This topic comes up often at certain positions such as CF, RF, SS, and 2B. How does Roberto Clemente's great throwing arm, for example, offset someone else's better home run numbers? Who was really the `better' player?
One final note, James uses his WinShares system and other statistical arguments throughout this book, but they are generally not described in detail. If you want to learn about WinShares per se, this isn't the book.
In addition, this book was published in 2000/2001, so there are clearly many current players (Manny Ramirez, Derek Jeter, etc.) who would be in an updated version.
Bottom line - I bought this book a year ago and look at it, at least a little, virtually every day, and I'm sure I'll be looking at it 20 years from now. At less than 18 dollars, this is a steal. If you are interested in baseball, you are wasting time hestitating, buy the book.
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