2024 the best baseball player of all time review

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year

“An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will.

Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,​The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than 200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?”

Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the twenty-first- century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history?

No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor, and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more.

The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Chapter by chapter, Posnanski invites readers to examine common lore with brand-new eyes and learn stories that have long gone unheard. The epic and often emotional reading experience mirrors Posnanski’s personal odyssey to capture the history and glory of baseball like no one else, fueled by his boundless love for the sport.

Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, The Baseball 100 is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.

From the Publisher

A Q&A with author Joe Posnanski

Can you talk a little bit about how this project came about? For almost a decade, I’d been thinking about the ultimate baseball project, something that would allow me to tell the story of baseball and why it has had such a powerful hold on me and my life. On a different track, I started a countdown of the 100 greatest players, then started another countdown of the 100 greatest players. And then it hit me: Both of these projects — telling baseball’s story and counting down the 100 greatest players — are really the same project, and that’s what led to The Baseball 100.

Have any of your picks or rankings proven controversial to readers? I would say only 99 of the 100 have been controversial. Everybody disagrees about which players are on this list, which players are not on this list, where the players are ranked. But that’s why it’s fun, right?

This book is longer than Moby Dick—what is it about the game of baseball that inspires so much passion in you and so many others?

Baseball is unique in so many ways. It’s the only game where the defense controls the ball. It has a leisurely pace that is different from other games. Its history, as Ken Burns will tell you, runs an almost perfectly parallel track to America’s history. And, I think, it is the sport that best mixes the individual with the team; by that I mean that the batter, the pitcher, even the fielder, all of these people are doing individual things, they can’t rely on anybody else to help them, but all of it is inside a team game.

What is some of the most interesting research you did for the book?

I think and hope there’s interesting research everywhere … I did spend a lot of time on each of the players. But my favorite research involved the Negro Leagues players on this list. I’m hoping that people will really enjoy learning more about Oscar Charleston and Buck Leonard and Bullet Rogan and players they might not know that much about.

You’ve ranked the players here—what do you think is the best baseball team in history?

I’m afraid that you’ll have to wait for The Baseball Team 100.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster (September 28, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 880 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1982180587
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982180584
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.75 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.7 x 9.25 inches
Reviewer: Grammy T
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fascinating and very readable!
Review: While this book is formidable in terms of the number of pages (827!) one must remember there are one hundred stories - and each story is unique unto itself. I especially appreciated the wide range of baseball greats remembered in this book - many I did not know but came to appreciate. I am passing this book on to my thirteen year old grandson who LOVES and plays baseball and is already a fountain of knowledge on the sport and many of the players. I am sure he will devour this book! highly recommend.

Reviewer: TCM62
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Enjoying it so much!
Review: This is a BIG book (over 850 pages) - and does what it should do: spur debate as to the important 100 players in baseball history. Well-written and just fun to read. Don't get too caught up in debating who is listed, what order they're in, etc. Just have run reading an excellent baseball book

Reviewer: Bill K
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Baseball book
Review: Lots of players I wouldn’t have know without reading this book. Very enjoyable book.

Reviewer: grebd
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: LOTS to absorb
Review: I love baseball, and I love to learn about the players beyond their statistics. The author provides a ton of interesting detail — in a few places a bit more than I might have needed. It is 825 pages long and I wonder if he should have kept it to 500 or 600 pages.

Reviewer: THen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great read
Review: I may not agree with his order of players, but isn’t that the point—how do you figure out the top 100 players. I really enjoyed Posnanskis treatment of this fun subject.

Reviewer: Jamison Treasure Island
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great information and a wonderful novel
Review: I loved the way the book focused on the greatest 100 players and made each chapter very significant.

Reviewer: Jeffrey A. Sherman
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Worth taking the time.
Review: This is a remarkable book. I already loved baseball, but it made me love it even more. It’s long. But every chapter is thoughtful and well written. This is a Great book.

Reviewer: M. Marino
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Fun Read
Review: Though the book is very long, it's not like you need to sit down and read it from cover to cover. I read before bed each evening and I found that if I read an essay or two at a time it was a great way to wind down and always with a smile. It is also well researched and well written. I learned a lot about players that I have never heard of, and also learned a lot about many that I thought I knew.

Reviewer: H Ray
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I thoroughly loved reading The Baseball 100. Wonderful writing on baseball’s greatest players. It’s celebrates the players and the game while also fully recognizing baseball’s history and all it should be shameful for. Filled with mind-blowing stats as well as the stories of incredible human beings (and controversial ones too). Would love to read it a second time.

Reviewer: dutheil nicolas
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Maîtrise de l anglais correct suffise

Reviewer: George
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I'm not much of a reader. Took me until a boring day to open book. But once in good to know many of the past stars.

Reviewer: Max Piltz
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Joe Posnanski is incredible.His knowledge of baseball is so vast, his ability to tell stories is such an incredible talent and they work in perfect harmony in this book.Joe has taught me so much about the history of the game through his books and this is no exception. As a jays fan it was great to read about a couple of the guys that played for us as well as many of the guys that played against us. Additionally I learned about the history and stories of the Negro Leagues and their value and importance in telling the story of this great game.Keep up the great work Joe and thank you for all the stories!

Reviewer: Robert Schachter
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is one if my favorite baseball books of all time! Every one of those 99 stories filled with fascinating facts and information.