Major League Books

In the Runner Section, there is no information about taking a lead off the base.

This is a great companion for umpiring. It is small enough to keep in your glove compartment in your car, but big enough that the text and diagram are easy to read and see. The size also makes it easy to hold in one hand and read while eating. If you do any umpiring (like my volunteer umpiring for Little League, which also includes other rules), you should have a copy of this book.

It fits into a jacket pocket. Whip it out at the game! At times it's a coversation piece. I give it four stars instead of five only because there was one instance where the announcer quoted a rule that was not the same as in this book, but so what?

The other reviewer needs to understand that of course there is no information in the rules of baseball concerning "runners leading off base". Such situations are covered by out/safe and batter/runner situations in the rules. How or when or why a runner "takes a lead" is entirely outside the pervue of the rules of baseball

The last change to the Official Baseball Rules was in 1996, so the 1996 through 2003 editions are all identical except for the cover and the price.

Although the publisher's statement that this edition is "complete with any and all rules changes in place for the 2003 season" isn't strictly false, it's very misleading!

Of course, if you need a new copy or the Official Baseball Rules, or you don't own a post-1995 copy, then this is the edition to buy.

When I first received the book 'Green Cathedrals' in the mail I was initially disappointed in that all the photographs are in black and white. However once I really examined the book I realized this book is truly unique in that it is the only book I am aware of that lists every ballfield ever used by a major league team or negro league team. This book required a ton of research. For example, if you ever wondered where the 1876 New York Mutuals of the National League played (I Have), this book has the answer. It includes the street names surrounding the park. This book is for a true baseball historians.
If this book is ever revised I'd love to see it made into several volumes. One for the Negro league, one for the early (wooden ballbarks), one for the classic era (Steel and concrete), such as Forbes Field, Ebbet's Field, etc., one for the multi-purpose era, and one for existing and future parks. I'd love to see it include the best available photographs of each. I'd buy the whole set.

Author Philllip Lowry did a nice job of reserach, and the result is an excellent reference source on big and minor league ballparks of past and present. But there are far too few photos (or illustrations) to give the reader an accurate feel for these wonderful green cathedrals. Also, I have the earlier (1992) edition which lacks much updated information on the many big-league ballparks (and some minor league ones as well) that entered the arena during the 1990's and 2000's.

Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks offers up a history of each of the ballparks that have hosted Major League and Negro League baseball, and appears in a revised, updated edition which has seen many changes since its initial appearance a decade ago. Over a hundred new ballparks and hundreds of new photos make for essentially a different presentation, covering each park's location, dimensions, capacity, and history. Baseball fans will love it.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I have just received from SABR a copy of the new revised edition of Phil Lowry's long-awaited latest version of GREEN CATHEDRALS (Walker & Company). I can't judge the overall quality or accuracy, since I am not a ballparks expert. But if the two entries on Cuban ballparks (pp.96-97) are any measure, than there is much to be judged as most disappointing. It is a shame that Lowry didn't have the Cuba entries checked by someone who knew anything at all about Cuban ballparks.

The first stadium, El Cerro or Gran Stadium is named incorrectly as Estadio Gran (which would be totally inappropriate in Spanish; it should be Gran Estadio del Cerro). It is also indicated that the occupant was the Negro National League Havana Cuban Stars of 1920, an absurdity, of course, because the Negro leagues club of that name played in the States (not Havana) and this park was not built until 1946, long after the team's demise.

The July 25, 1959 Cuban Sugar Kings contest (the one with the shooting incident) that is mentioned in the text was played before a crowd estimated at 25,000 (not 2572, as given by Lowry).

Gran Estadio was built in 1946 and was the first and only park on this site in the Cerro neighborhood. There was no Gran Stadium II which replaced some number one version as Lowry states. (He is apparently confusing the two Almendares ballparks: Almendares Park I (original home of the pro Cuban League) was destroyed by a hurricane in 1926 and promptly replaced by Almendares Park II, which gave way in the early 1930s to La Tropical Stadium. There has only ever been one Gran Stadium (Cerro Stadium), which was renamed Latin American Stadium in 1971 by the Castro government, on the occasion of its refurbishing that year for the Amateur World Series.

The second stadium listed by Lowry is Estadio Cerveza Tropicale, which was technically Gran Stadium Cervecería Tropical (or familiarly La Tropical Stadium). It has no E at the end of the name.

The occupant is listed as the NNL Cubans but again this was not a stadium used by a Negro leagues team (for "neutral cite games" as Lowry has it). It was a stadium which housed Cuban amateur play and also the bulk of Cuban League pro games between 1930 and 1946. It was perhaps most famous for hosting the Amateur World Series games of 1939, 1940 and 1941.

Lowry claims the park was built in 1930 for the Pan American Games. The Pan Am Games didn't start until 1951; the park was built to hold the second Central American and Caribbean Games in the fall of 1930.

Lowry lists current uses for the park (today called Estadio Pepe Marrero, after a minor hero of the 1950s revolution) as lacrosse, soccer, and track and field. I have spent a lot of time in Cuba in the past dozen years and have never heard of a single lacrosse match being played on the island. (Field hockey yes, but that is not lacrosse.)

But worst of all, the photo Lowry uses at the top of page 97 and identifies as Havana's La Tropicale (sic) is not La Tropical at all but rather Gran Stadium in Cerro, taken sometime in the late forties or early fifties. La Tropical is easily identified by the running track that was its main feature (it circled the baseball playing area) and would be clearly visible in any aerial shot. The track and some of the grandstand is still there, but the oval now circles a soccer field. The park was also set in a wooded area (not an urban center like Cerro), had only a small grandstand and no outfield fences.

For good photos of both Cerro (Gran) Stadium and La Tropical, one can look at Roberto González Echevarría's The Pride Havana, which also details the history of these historic venues. RGE's fine book has been a best-seller since 1999 and was readily available to Mr. Lowry.

All this does not bode well for the information on other obscure parks. Is the scholarship better there? Perhaps. I hate to play "I gotcha!" and this is far from my attention here. But I also hate to see Cuba baseball continue to be so shrouded in misinformation and even dis-information. Especially when there are now so many good sources out there on the subject.

Peter C. Bjarkman
Author of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 and (with Mark Rucker) Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball

This book is one of two available on the Seattle Pilots' one and only season of 1969. The other, a disaster by one Carson Van Lindt, is a poorly written mishmash. I've wondered if that work was ever seen by a bona fide editor.

This Hogan book is better but the poor guy needed an editor as well. Misspellings are rampant. Plenty of grammar problems too.

That aside, it's a game-by-game look at the season accompanied by interviews of players and front office staff. The game recaps resemble fundamental gameday newspaper coverage. The interviews are insightful and have their moments.

Anyone who was there probably needs this book and Van Lindt's. You'll need to overlook the loose standards applied to English usage and remember these were two guys who meant well in taking on a subject that is largely a footnote in the history of major league baseball.

This was an absolutely fabulous book to read! I am a very big baseball fan and have known about the existence of the Seattle Pilots for over 30 years but have not really come across any hard information about them until I found a website dedicated to them which in turn informed me about this book. The book really goes into great detail about the team during it's 1-year tenure in Seattle and it's ultimate demise and subsequent move to Milwaukee. I highly recommend this book to any serious baseball historian.

Do the names Jerry McNertney, Steve Hovley, Wayne Comer and Rich Rollins sound familiar? If not, don't worry too much, as only the biggest baseball trivia expert would quickly know that those players were part of the 1969 Seattle Pilots.

Who? Or better yet, What?

The Pilots, an American League expansion franchise in 1969, finished in last place in their only season in the city and - due to management's financial miscues that were worse than anything seen in Sick Stadium - relocated to Milwaukee shortly before the start of the 1970 season.

But what a wild ride it was for one year, as the Pilots started their only year with a roster of major league cast-offs, career minor-leaguers and several players who made the grade through a variety of tryout camps that were conducted under game conditions.

It is a wonder the club won 64 games - and lost 98 - while finishing in last place in the AL West, though nearly 670,000 fans passed through the turnstiles for the home games. And Seattle wasn't the worst team in the AL, as Cleveland won two fewer games.

Seattle was awarded the expansion franchise in 1967, but by that juncture attendance was dipping for a long-time minor league team in the Pacific Coast League and the stadium was showing the wear & tear of 30 years. The 1969 season became a bizarre culmination of what was once a rich tradition of baseball in the city.

Author Kenneth Hogan delivers an excellent overview of professional baseball in Seattle and the view of several major league clubs - Kansas City A's and Cleveland Indians - to possibly relocate their franchises to the city. He supplements his research with an oral history from 14 players, a healthy dose of statistics and a variety of other diamond gems.

Nearly 40 years later, the Pilots have found a home - of sorts - with fans; reproductions of the hats and jerseys, along with shirts that have the team logo, are hot sellers with the "throwback" generation.

Hogan dusts off home plate and delivers a winner about a franchise that couldn't get through the turbulence created by (mis)management. But what a ride it was in the summer of '69.

A book constantly open at my desk, rapidly becoming dog-eared, it is invaluable to my research into the lives and deaths of baseball personalities. I recommend the book highly to anyone doing similar research. I am especially interested in ballplayers who were Veterans of the Military and Lee gave me thousands to work with.

Not quite the book I thought it would be - someone purchasing a book titled "The Baseball Necrology" would most likely be more interested than the average baseball fan in what a player did after his career. The book lists the player's date and place of birth, date and place of death, the main job the player held after his career, the cause of death, and where he is buried; it sometimes does not list all those either. It does nothing more to expound on that, it gives no real biographical information, and covers FAR too many players with minimal experience (a year or less). Another irritating tweak is mentioning that Babe Ruth was also a pitcher, which should be WELL known to anyone who is interested enough to purchase this sort of book. It also states that Carl Hubbell was known for his knuckleball(?), once won 24 straight games, and his 1934 All Star Game performance; this is some information that any baseball fan already knows and also some information they would want to correct. I doubt this book would ever interest anyone with just a passing fancy in baseball but it contains far too little information for a real baseball fan. There is not enough good information in this book to warrant its price tag; snatch it up if it ever becomes available in paperback at a mere pittance but other than that, give it a pass. P.S. - if you're interested in the player's life after his career, read Bill James New Historical Baseball Abstract - a majority of the player entries have at least SOME post career information.

Bill Lee should be dubbed "Baseball's Undertaker." Maybe there is even room in Cooperstown for a plaque to that effect. In his book, "The Baseball Necrology," he gives brief (sometimes all too brief) paragraph synopsis of what happened to baseball players after they left baseball. This book is a reference book, not necessarily a narrative, but if you are a baseball fan or historian, consider your collection incomplete until you've added this gem.

When a baseball player leaves the major leagues, they often have 40 or 50 years of life ahead of them. How many times have you asked the question, "I wonder what happened to..." or, "I wonder where he's buried..." This book solves that question for those baseball players who have passed on to the big green diamond in the sky.

Though the reader is often left wanting to know more about a favorite player, Lee at least gives you an idea where to look (graveyard, obituary, etc.). It is easy to see how a more complete biography on any player would have made the book unmanageable. Heck, as is, the book is over 500 pages long.

This seems to be a great stepping stone for anyone wanting to do more research on baseball players and their lives. Even though some may be disappointed that there wasn't more information, or disappointed that the book wasn't written in a narrative format, this is an extra, extraordinary reference book, and an amazing contribution to America's pastime.

I have never seen anything quite like it in the library or in the bookstores.

A neat book that chronicles the inaugural season of the Washington Nationals in 2005. It also represents the author's first book out of the chute -- and he has written a winner. The book is written from the perspective of a fan -- a seasoned fan who has watched baseball for many years -- and provides many of the highlights and lowlights of the Nationals first season -- and insight into the mind of a fan who is passionate about baseball and captures the essence of baseball in DC. I attended a few of the games he wrote about and he captures the crowds and the games quite well and the social milieu that is Washington DC and RFK Stadium. Other than a few typos here and there, the book is worth the read if you are a true fan of baseball. While sometimes discursive and pendantic, it balances digging in on some topics and raising other issues that are worthy of consideration. Now that the Nationals are no longer owned by MLB and will be moving into a new stadium in a few years, this book represents an important benchmark regarding the "history" of the Nationals. I recommend this book to others interested in the Nationals or a different take on the national pastime.

The author has been a major league baseball statistical consultant. This book provides an insiders perspective to many interesting strategic questions. There are three parts to the book (1) stories drawn from the authors career (2) a general manager iq test that consists of 100 questions (3) a look at the Houston Astro's 2004 season. I think most any baseball fan would enjoy and benefit from this quick read.

The author has investigated several key areas. Pitching, which he has broken down into starters and relievers. For starting pitchers he has a formula that is related to how many runs are allowed versus how many runs his team customarily scores. The relievers,including lefty specialists, are analyzed comparing the number of appearances in which they do not yield runs.Offense is rated by a formula called Total Offensive Efficiency
(TOE).Defense analysis has long been the neglected child. Here the author comes up with formulas to study negative and positive fielding percentages which then lead to overall fielding efficiency. Another interesting chapter is titled Longevity and Patterns of Competition which looks at seasons broken down into quarters as well as how long players now tend to be with a team. Lot's of meat to digest.

This is a terrific book that covers a relatively neglected subject in a thorough and engaging manner. McFarland has a habit of publishing baseball books blighted by poor writing and non-existent editing, but when they receive an excellent manuscript, the result is an excellent book.

Wilson covers notable Latino players in the majors, minors, and Negro leagues in the first half of the 20th century, and he specifically exludes those who later, in the 1950s, became famous and frequently reported-on stars, such as Minnie Minoso and Roberto Avila. The book is neatly divided into chapters that each cover one decade. Only one individual,major league pitcher and coach Adolfo Luque, gets a chapter all to himself.

The biographies of the various players are presented in an informal, anecdotal manner that holds the reader's interest. The author, who evidently is fluent in Spanish (he writes for a Spanish language newspaper), conducted interviews with an amazing number of former players, many of them in their 80's and 90's now, as well as with surviving sportswriters who covered the men during their playing days. The author is to be congratulated for having tracked down these old ballplayers, and the interviews he conducted yielded a treasure house of anecdotes, some of which have appeared elsewhere, but most of which are new, at least to readers of the American, English language press. Although the author occasionally gets bogged down in discussions of extremely minor figures, for the most part he concentrates on players whose careers were notable successes.

He also deals with the issue of American racism, and the obsessive concern of Major League Baseball with keeping men of color (ANY color other than "pure" white) out of the major leagues. It's interesting to learn how many Latino players managed to "pass" as white, despite their obvious African blood, and how others wriggled under the color line by being described as "Indians."

The book sort of straggles to its end with two appendices, one of them discussing Americans who were influential in bringing about the migration of Latino players, and the other on the Washington Senators' spring training camps during the World War II era, when the team contained a large number of Latinos.

Al in all, an excellent, engaging, and highly informative read.

Steve Trout had a decent major league career. His father had a very good career. This is the story of both men, their careers and their lives together and apart.
Steve probably had more potential, but for many reasons he never quite reached the heights. This book succeeds where Steve's playing career didn't. Trout pushes himself to reflect on many moments and to reveal his thoughts then and now.
It is a happy story, although sometimes it shouldn't be. To understand that, you have to understand Trout. Steve Trout is a positive man. He is genuine, honest and fun-loving and so is his book.
This is a book for generations of baseball fans. It is a book for fathers and sons. It is a book for anyone who likes a good story.

This book is a fun read about a first year Major League Baseball franchise. After a brief discription pertaining to the history of baseball in Denver, the book details the day to day revere of a unique franchise. It was interesting to see, not only what it takes for a City to petition MLB for an expansion team but the day to day operations involved with playing 81 home games a year. From the front office to the stadium, to the dugout, any baseball fan will find this book intriguing.