Welcome to the first BBS for the New Year! I hope 2024 brings lots of good reading your way. A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough […]
It’s easy to find this info on-line, but getting less so to get them in book form. Here’s a list I just read about “The 25 Invincible MLB Records” along with my personal take on whether their validity. Most are questions of longevity. Generally speaking, fewer players […]
Tagged as:
baseball records
Welcome to a new feature when this old man spouts off about things in the game that have become annoying. Since a lot of them are eventually covered in books or other items you can put on a bookshelf, I deem it appropriate. I get a good portion of my leads from Google alerts of […]
More than any other sports, baseball is inundated with stats. There are numerous books about the evolution of numbers in the game. I marvel that historians can look at the earliest box scores and extrapolate on the quality of the pioneers based on such limited information. Over time, the way statistics were gathered and interpreted […]
Tagged as:
baseball records,
baseball statistics
Just renewed the domain for another year, so to make it worthwhile I guess I should be posting more often, and not just “Lest We Forget.” I don’t seem to have the free time to read as I did when I was working as a journalist, which is kind of weird, considering these days I’m […]
As I say in the interview, Dan Schlossberg is a busy guy. He’s written or co-written 40 books, including two updates that were released this year, The New Baseball Bible: Notes, Nuggets, Lists, and Legends from Our National Pastime and Designated Hebrew: The Ron Blomberg Story. The former is one of those things that needs constant […]
Tagged as:
Dan Schlossberg,
Ron Blomberg
Everything is trivial. Blanket statement, but ultimately true, if you want to get “in the whole universe…” philosophical about it. In the words of Trooper… We’re here for a good time Not a long time (not a long time) So have a good time… And for baseball fans, part of that good time is the […]
Tagged as:
Jason Katzman,
trivia
Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
Tagged as:
Boston Red Sox,
Cal Ripken Jr.,
Chicago Cubs Philadelphia Phillies,
David Cone,
Houston Astros,
Moneyball,
MVP,
New York Yankees,
Oakland As,
Pete Rose,
Pitching,
Ted Williams,
World Series
Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
Tagged as:
baseball statistics,
Chicago Cubs,
David Cone,
Houston Astros,
Michael Lewis,
Moneyball,
New York Mets,
New York Yankees,
Philadelphia Phillies,
Pitching,
Ted Williams,
Yogi Berra
Headnote: I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m […]
Headnote: I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m […]
Tagged as:
baseball rules,
baseball statistics,
Chicago Cubs,
David Halnerstam,
David Ross,
Keith Hernandez,
Ken Harrelson,
New York Mets,
New York Yankees,
oral history,
Ted Williams,
trivia,
Ty Cobb,
World Series
A new year, a new look for the BBS list. I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about […]
Tagged as:
Baseball America,
baseball analysis,
Bill James,
Chicago Cubs,
Chipper Jones,
Michael Lewis,
prospects,
rookies
By now most of you are familiar with my caveats, so I’ll just mention them briefly: The list includes only print editions (no kindle or audio versions) because I’m old school. Second, since the rankings are updated every hour, these lists might not longer be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them. But […]
Tagged as:
Baseball instruction,
batting,
Chicago Cubs,
David Ross,
Hank Greenberg,
Houston Astros,
Los Angeles Dodgers,
Rich Cohen,
Ted Williams,
World Series
As you may have notice, these entries have been falling off in the last several weeks. My apologies. A new full-time job — very different from what I had been doing as the sports and features editor of a weekly community newspaper in suburban New Jersey — has put new and strange demands on my […]
Tagged as:
Boston Red Sox,
Cal Ripken Jr.,
Chicago Cubs,
David Ortiz,
David Ross,
Lou Gehrig,
Michael Lewis,
Oakland As,
Rick Ankiel,
statistics,
Ted Williams,
World Series
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
baseball statistics,
Chicago Cubs,
Chipper Jones,
David Ross,
Jimmy Breslin,
Leo Durocher,
Michael Lewis,
New York Mets,
Oakland As,
Rick Ankiel,
sabermetrics,
Theo Epstein,
World Series
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
baseball analytics,
baseball business,
baseball statistics,
Chicago Cubs,
classic baseball book,
Moneyball,
Oakland As,
Pitching,
World Series
A few weeks back I did a review of Chuck Klosterman’s latest book, But What If We’re Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past. Klosterman refereed to The Book of Predictions as an example of just how wrong people can be. It’s fun to look at some of the entries in Predictions — […]
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
baseball analysis,
baseball statistics,
ESPN,
instructionals,
Michel Lewis,
Mike Matheny,
Milwaukee Brewers,
New York Mets,
Oakland Athletics,
Pitching,
Ron Darling,
St. Louis Cardinals,
Ted Williams,
Tim Kurkjian,
World Series
Soapbox Time: Broken records
August 1, 2023
Welcome to a new feature when this old man spouts off about things in the game that have become annoying. Since a lot of them are eventually covered in books or other items you can put on a bookshelf, I deem it appropriate. I get a good portion of my leads from Google alerts of […]
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