On The Bookshelves

The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia was released today. As always, it's edited by Gary Gilette and Pete Palmer, with an introduction by Peter Gammons. I don't really know why ESPN has it's name tagged to it, though maybe it has something to do with funding or something. You'd think Major League Baseball would want to publish an official book of statistics. Then again, the Keeping Of The Official Statistics has always been an interesting and contradictory thing. If you're interested, I'd recommend a stellar book called The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics, by Alan Schwarz and forward by, you guessed it, Peter Gammons. It should really be required reading for anyone with an interest in baseball history, as it demonstrates how complicated the history of our great game really is.