Philadelphia's Top Fifty Baseball Players

by Rich Westcott, Dallas Green (Foreword)

Philadelphia’s Top Fifty Baseball Players takes a look at the greatest players in Philadelphia baseball history from the earliest days in 1830 through the Negro Leagues and into the modern era. Their ranks include batting champions, home run kings, Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Award winners, and Hall of Famers—from Ed Delahanty, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Roy Campanella, Mike Schmidt, and Ryan Howard to Negro League stars Judy Johnson and Biz Mackey and other Philadelphia standouts such as Richie Ashburn, Dick Allen, Chuck Klein, Eddie Collins, and Reggie Jackson. For each player the book highlights memorable incidents and accomplishments and, above all, his place in Philadelphia’s rich baseball tradition.

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

Typical of Westcott. Very poorly written and edited. He often mentions a topic then just moves on without adding details.
His writing also makes no sense much of the time.
In the chapter on Ed Delahanty he states Delahanty was an “outstanding left fielder” yet the next chapter about Billy Hamilton, he states Hamilton played centerfield between the “average glove work if Delahanty and (Sam Thompson). So was he an outstanding or average left fielder?
Avoid anything written by Rich Westcott. His writing is awful, i picked up this book at the library and i did t realize he was the author until i started reading. In the first chapter, on Sam Thompson, I didn’t even have to check the author to realize it was westcott’s lazy writing.
Don’t bother with any of his garbage.

[Keith · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is nothing subtle or misleading about the title of this book. Rich Westcott sets out to list the 50 best baseball players in Philadelphia history. The only criteria are that they spent a significant part of their career in Philadelphia or that they were from the greater Philly area. There are few surprises in his choices and his prose amounts to little more than just rattling off yearly statistics. Intriguing stories into the background of some of the players are alluded to and then ignored such as stating that Chief Bender faced discrimination as a native American in the 1910's or Roy Campanella being from a half Italian, half African American family. Only the barest details are given. In addition, there are some horrible mistakes in grammar (a player "poled" unanimously for MVP voting?) and even worse mistakes for someone who is supposedly knowledgable about baseball. Mike Schmidt would have been hard pressed to hit his 500th home run in Forbes Field in 1986 considering it was demolished in 1971. And of course Mike Piazza qualified for the Hall of Fame ballot in his first year of eligibilty - EVERY retired player does. Give this book a pass.