Book Review - Sports Illustrated Baseball's Greatest

About the Book
Ruth or Aaron? Gibson or Koufax? Fenway or Wrigley? Yankees or Dodgers?

For as long as there has been baseball, pundits and fans of America’s favorite pastime have argued, deliberated and analyzed over who are the best players, the best teams, the best games and more. Indeed, one can ask an entire stadium of people and come up with an entire stadium of answers.

Now the Major League Baseball experts from Sports Illustrated weigh in with thought-provoking and insightful answers to the questions that have been pondered since the days of Abner Doubleday.

Indeed, the new must-have coffee-table book Baseball's Greatest (Oct. 8, 2013, Time Home Entertainment, $32.95) offers the hands-down, unequivocal “Top 10” in more than 20 categories, including the top sluggers, pitchers, stadiums, managers, and franchises.

According to Bill Syken, the book’s editor, baseball is the toughest sport to judge across the ages: “When you attempt to compare Honus Wagner to Derek Jeter, or Stan Musial to Barry Bonds, or Walter Johnson to Roger Clemens, there are no right answers, only compelling arguments—and this book is full of them.”

BASEBALL’S GREATEST also pays tribute to the diamond’s best characters and the most impressive records that may never be surpassed and includes hundreds of classic images and the storytelling that only the writers of Sports Illustrated can provide.

“As I researched classic SI stories, I was reminded of how many great writers SI has had over the years,” Syken said. “Robert W. Creamer, Ron Fimrite and Tom Verducci all represent the height of their craft, and the prose from them and many other spectacular writers makes the personalities in this book come alive.”

To create this ultimate fan book, Syken also assembled a lineup of SI’s baseball writers and editors that includes Tom Verducci, Stephen Cannella, Kostya Kennedy, David Sabino, Dick Friedman, Albert Chen and David Bauer. As they spiritedly debated every category to reach a consensus, the panelists justified their rankings, and their comments appear in the book alongside each Top 10 selection.

Their stunning collaborative effort resulted in not only rankings for the best players by position, but also produced lists that range from best base runners and defensive players to best quotes and movies—endlessly arguable topics that sports fans will love.

“My favorite section in the book is probably the greatest games,” Syken added. “Reading the old stories, you relive not only Fisk’s home run, or Mookie Wilson’s grounder, but all the forgotten drama that led up to those moments.”

In short, this is the best of the best in the major leagues—Baseball's Greatest .



My Take on the Book
This was a great book that really captured some of my own boyhood fascination of baseball and it is filled with so many of the greats from my era but earlier and more recent too. I loved not only the facts that were shared but the imagery was wonderful. The photos that were included just jump off the page and make you wish that you were there experiencing the game with the players beig profiled! This is an amazing book for any true baseball fan!



----------------------------------------
New to the Divadom or to Dad of Divas Reviews?
Please Subscribe to my RSS Feed! Subscribe in a reader
Questions? Drop me a line at dadofdivas@gmail.com