The Team by Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball

The obsessive reference for every baseball nut, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL is a comprehensive, original, devour-it-like-salted-peanuts single-volume encyclopedia that marries history and statistics and delivers them team by team. Organizing by teams gives the wide viewÑhow do the MurdererÕs Row Yankees compare to the Big Red Machine? The long viewÑwhat team has given the Red Sox the most trouble over the last 100 years? And the hidden viewÑname the team that went through all the 1990s without a Gold Glove winner. ItÕs how the game is played, and now, finally, itÕs presented in the way the game is best understood.

Created by baseball historian Dennis Purdy, a true buffÕs buff, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA offers the history of every existing major league baseball franchise told through narrative, bios, anecdotes, photographs, and the most comprehensive team statistics ever assembled in a single book. Every yearÕs record, standing, attendance, and primary starting lineup for each of baseballÕs 30 franchises. Top-10 leader lists for every major category (and some minor ones), plus all-time won-loss records versus all opponents. All the awardsÑMVP, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, Gold Glove. Manager records. Post-season records. Even retired uniform numbers. But the stats are just the beginningÑeach chapter contains entertaining thumbnail biographies of every franchiseÕs key players, recalling, for example, howthe gameÕs greatest shortstop, Honus Wagner, was ecruited when spotted throwing rocks across a river. And sprinkled throughout are spicy team facts, bizarre anecdotes, statistical anomalies, and little-known gemsÑlike what Babe Ruth said to Lou Gehrig after hitting his Òcalled shotÓ homerun in the 1932 World Series.