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The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball
An updated new edition of a perennial favorite offers all the statistics, history, and stories of baseball, from 1901 through the 1999 season, offering a yearbyyear format, season summaries for each team, listings of every nohitter, and much more. Original. 25,000 first printing.
759 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 10, 2017
This is a TOP TEN book in my baseball library.
Availability. OOP – Many editions can be found at reasonable prices.
Type. DATA&STATS
Use. BROWSE/REFERENCE
_explanation_
The first author cited for the book, David Neft, “is an American writer and historian best known for his groundbreaking work in creating sports encyclopedias” (Wiki). Neft started the Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball in 1974. It was updated almost yearly after that, the last edition in 2007. The edition I actually have is that of 1994.
Depending on one’s reasons for having the book, it may not make much difference what edition you have. As far as I know, each edition was basically the same as the previous with new data for the most recent season or seasons. (I suppose there could have been some changes in presentation of the data from the early editions to the last few editions.)
The book’s Preface talks about the unusual presentation format of the book. Instead of presenting the statistics of baseball’s batters and pitchers in two giant sections, organized alphabetically, this book concentrates more on telling the story of baseball’s history in a year-by-year sequence, starting in 1901 and continuing up through the most recent season.
So, for each season, there’s a four page section, which expands to five for the 1961 season (when the AL expanded to 10 teams), then six (1970, when both leagues expanded to two 6-team divisions), then 8 (1977, AL expands to 7 teams in each division), finally 9 (1985, no new teams but an additional page of data for each year).
Within each year, after an introductory ~1/2 page essay on highlights of the season, the American League teams are shown first, in order of their finish in the League (prior to Divisions) or their Division; then the National League teams. And for each team, taking up a couple vertical inches and the width of the page, there’s information for batters on the left half, pitchers on the right.
I won’t enumerate the columns of data for the players, but I will give an example of which players are shown for each team. Let’s take the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers (winners of the AL East) as an example. For the batters/fielders, the first players listed are always those who played most games at (in this order) 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, the three OF positions, C, and DH (for AL teams starting in 1973). For the Brewers, these players are Cecil Cooper 1B, Jim Gantner 2B, Robin Yount SS, Paul Molitor 3B, Charlie Moore, Gorman Thomas, and Ben Oglivie OF, Ted Simmons C, and Roy Howell DH. Then below the regulars the other players are listed, in decreasing order of games played: from Don Money (96 games) down to Bob Skube (4 games).
Over on the pitchers’ side of the page, in decreasing order of games won (a rather idiosyncratic choice), is the list of the team's pitchers. For the Brewers, the first several pitchers listed are Pete Vukovich (18 wins), Mike Caldwell (17), Bob McClure (12), Moose Haas (11), Jim Slaton (10), Randy Lerch (8), Doc Medich (5), and Rollie Fingers (5) – the Brewers’ closer. Last pitcher listed in Jamie Easterly (0 wins, 2 losses).
Having listed all the teams in both leagues, and all? (most?) of their players and stats, the remaining data shown for the season is primarily post season results. The line scores for all post-season games are shown, together with the composite batting and pitching stats for playoff teams. In 1982 there were three post-season series: Milwaukee vs. California (AL championship), St. Louis vs. Atlanta (NL championship) and St. Louis vs. Milwaukee (World Series).
Now, the baseball fan will say, are there no career stats for the players anywhere? Well, there are. There are combined stats for batters and pitchers (alphabetically arranged) for five different periods: 1901-1919, 1920-1945, 1946-1960, 1961-1972, and 1973-1993. But of course many players will have played in more than one period. For example, Ted Williams played in both the second and third of these periods. He isn’t mentioned with the second period batters, because he played more in the third period. That’s where his career stat totals appear.
Finally, at the back of my edition, there are about fifty pages of additional “Leaders and Features”. If you really want to know what they all are, . And in front of everything I’ve described so far is a very short section (2 pages) about baseball in the 1876-1900 era, including an essay and tables of star batters and pitchers.
My edition also has a curious section in front of this called The Great Mississippi. It is introduced with the words
_next TOP TEN_
Availability. OOP – Many editions can be found at reasonable prices.
Type. DATA&STATS
Use. BROWSE/REFERENCE
_explanation_
The first author cited for the book, David Neft, “is an American writer and historian best known for his groundbreaking work in creating sports encyclopedias” (Wiki). Neft started the Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball in 1974. It was updated almost yearly after that, the last edition in 2007. The edition I actually have is that of 1994.
Depending on one’s reasons for having the book, it may not make much difference what edition you have. As far as I know, each edition was basically the same as the previous with new data for the most recent season or seasons. (I suppose there could have been some changes in presentation of the data from the early editions to the last few editions.)
The book’s Preface talks about the unusual presentation format of the book. Instead of presenting the statistics of baseball’s batters and pitchers in two giant sections, organized alphabetically, this book concentrates more on telling the story of baseball’s history in a year-by-year sequence, starting in 1901 and continuing up through the most recent season.
So, for each season, there’s a four page section, which expands to five for the 1961 season (when the AL expanded to 10 teams), then six (1970, when both leagues expanded to two 6-team divisions), then 8 (1977, AL expands to 7 teams in each division), finally 9 (1985, no new teams but an additional page of data for each year).
Within each year, after an introductory ~1/2 page essay on highlights of the season, the American League teams are shown first, in order of their finish in the League (prior to Divisions) or their Division; then the National League teams. And for each team, taking up a couple vertical inches and the width of the page, there’s information for batters on the left half, pitchers on the right.
I won’t enumerate the columns of data for the players, but I will give an example of which players are shown for each team. Let’s take the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers (winners of the AL East) as an example. For the batters/fielders, the first players listed are always those who played most games at (in this order) 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, the three OF positions, C, and DH (for AL teams starting in 1973). For the Brewers, these players are Cecil Cooper 1B, Jim Gantner 2B, Robin Yount SS, Paul Molitor 3B, Charlie Moore, Gorman Thomas, and Ben Oglivie OF, Ted Simmons C, and Roy Howell DH. Then below the regulars the other players are listed, in decreasing order of games played: from Don Money (96 games) down to Bob Skube (4 games).
Over on the pitchers’ side of the page, in decreasing order of games won (a rather idiosyncratic choice), is the list of the team's pitchers. For the Brewers, the first several pitchers listed are Pete Vukovich (18 wins), Mike Caldwell (17), Bob McClure (12), Moose Haas (11), Jim Slaton (10), Randy Lerch (8), Doc Medich (5), and Rollie Fingers (5) – the Brewers’ closer. Last pitcher listed in Jamie Easterly (0 wins, 2 losses).
Having listed all the teams in both leagues, and all? (most?) of their players and stats, the remaining data shown for the season is primarily post season results. The line scores for all post-season games are shown, together with the composite batting and pitching stats for playoff teams. In 1982 there were three post-season series: Milwaukee vs. California (AL championship), St. Louis vs. Atlanta (NL championship) and St. Louis vs. Milwaukee (World Series).
Now, the baseball fan will say, are there no career stats for the players anywhere? Well, there are. There are combined stats for batters and pitchers (alphabetically arranged) for five different periods: 1901-1919, 1920-1945, 1946-1960, 1961-1972, and 1973-1993. But of course many players will have played in more than one period. For example, Ted Williams played in both the second and third of these periods. He isn’t mentioned with the second period batters, because he played more in the third period. That’s where his career stat totals appear.
Finally, at the back of my edition, there are about fifty pages of additional “Leaders and Features”. If you really want to know what they all are, . And in front of everything I’ve described so far is a very short section (2 pages) about baseball in the 1876-1900 era, including an essay and tables of star batters and pitchers.
My edition also has a curious section in front of this called The Great Mississippi. It is introduced with the words
For LEE ALLEN,Then four pages of ten poems by Jordan A. Deutsch dated October 1973.
who called one night
on his way back to Cooperstown
to say he had discovered the sun.
_next TOP TEN_
February 19, 2019
My favorite baseball encyclopedia. I love the way it’s broken down by years, I love the injury key (several WTF moments there), and I love the mini essays. I couldn’t live without Baseball Reference, but I also don’t think I could do without this either.
June 28, 2011
They apparently have stopped publishing annual editions of this fantastic reference work with complete statistics of every Major League Baseball season, which makes me want to KILL. But I apparently have found a book that no one else has rated, which makes me feel a little better.
August 21, 2013
What can I say: stats, stats, stats! Reading the yearly run downs are great too.
June 23, 2010
baseball,baseball reference,baseball statistics
May 18, 2012
This was one of the most amazing jobs of compiling statistics that you will ever read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews