Keeping it “100”

One hundred.

It’s a nice, round number.

Picking from the thousands of moments in baseball history is a daunting task. Those who take it on have a responsibility to do the due diligence to separate the merely good from the truly magnificent. Kind of like parsing out true Hall of Famers from those who just miss the mark.

The use of “greatest” or “ultimate” or “complete” in the books’ titles — whether we’re talking about players, events, cards, etc. — are of necessity changeable over time.

One of my favorites — Baseball’s 100: A Personal Ranking of the Best Players in Baseball History by the late Maury Allen — was published in 1981, so that’s 40-plus years without people like Gregg Maddux or Mike Piazza or Shohei Ohtani or dozens of others you could name. You have to be flexible and know that there are no last words or final decisions when it comes to history. At least until history itself ends (and then what does it matter?).

Bookshelf readers know of my admiration of Joe Posnanski‘s The Baseball 100. It just so happens that while I was puttering around in my library looking for information for the previous entry, I came across a number of other titles that fall into the theme of this post.

First off is The Story of Baseball in 100 Photographs, published by Sports Illustrated. The magazine is honest enough to understand that baseball photography didn’t begin when they released the first issue in 1954 and there are certainly snapshots that represent the game prior to that. But what made me really curious was wanting to see how much of a match-up there was between Posnanski and SI. (To be fair, his book is more about people than events; those are covered in his forthcoming Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, due out September 5.)

Similar in scope to Photographs is A History of Baseball in 100 Objects (2015).

Nearby to both of those on my bookshelf is Baseball: 100 Classic Moments in the History of the Game (2000), under the aegis of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Not too far from that was 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball  (landmark anniversaries also make for great publishing opportunities).

Next to that was The Top 100: The Best Baseball Cards to Own, Ranked and Rated for Collector and Investor. Published more than 30 years ago, I’m certain a number of the cardboard included should be replaced by newer products.

Akin to Allen’s 100 is The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time (1988), by the estimable duo of Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig, although I don’t know if the “personal ranking” applies or it’s a more “scientific approach.

On the same vein, I have other “Century” books:

• Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball
• Red Sox Century: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Most Storied Franchise (originally published in 2004, updated in 2015)
• Cubs 100: A Century at Wrigley
• 100 Years of the World Series: 1903-2004 
• 100 Years of Major League Baseball: American and National Leagues, 1901-2000

Anyway, these are the ones I have in my collection; there are more along these lines (although I have excluded series like “100 Things (fill in the blank) Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.“)

I don’t expect I’ll be around for any “200” books, assuming baseball (and the world) is still around by then. But even if I were, it wouldn’t have the same ring to it as “100.”