Chicago Cubs: Seasons at the Summit

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable but DRY
Review: A unique analysis of the top 100 Cubs player seasons of all time up to 1997 (the year of publication). There is a lot good interesting, valuable information here that baseball fans will appreciate. There is real treasure here!

But like most treasure you must move aside mountains of dry sand to get to the gems.

Especially niggling is the lack of a good index or listing of the players alphabetically. For example, to locate Cap Anson, or Bruce Sutter, Ernie Banks, or Ron Santo you have page through the book a section at a time to find them. How the authors and the publisher overlooked this simple courtesy is baffling!

Members of the Society of American Baseball Research (of which the authors are both members) will want to add this amazing resource to their library for the wealth of stats and the clever use of sabermetrics. The rest of us will most likely pass on this dry book.

/fwa

Rating:
Summary: Will it be updated for Sammy Sosa?
Review: It was awfully coincidental that this type of book comes out in the same year when Sammy Sosa has probably the most productive season in modern Cub history. I was puzzled as to how the authors came up with such determinations as "fielding runs prevented"...which tended to bolster the statistics of many old-time Cubs. I think the most valuable aspect of this book is the insight it lends; the authors point out that statistics alone do not make a good season. They pointed out that players such as Bill Nicholson were more valuable in years where their statistics were not as impressive as other years. Other factors, such as league strength and the strength of the rest of the lineup must be considered when determining the value of a ballplayer's stats. A must read for true Cub fans...I'm not sure anyone else besides true baseball junkies would find much enjoyment in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Will it be updated for Sammy Sosa?
Review: It was awfully coincidental that this type of book comes out in the same year when Sammy Sosa has probably the most productive season in modern Cub history. I was puzzled as to how the authors came up with such determinations as "fielding runs prevented"...which tended to bolster the statistics of many old-time Cubs. I think the most valuable aspect of this book is the insight it lends; the authors point out that statistics alone do not make a good season. They pointed out that players such as Bill Nicholson were more valuable in years where their statistics were not as impressive as other years. Other factors, such as league strength and the strength of the rest of the lineup must be considered when determining the value of a ballplayer's stats. A must read for true Cub fans...I'm not sure anyone else besides true baseball junkies would find much enjoyment in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Cubs Yearbook (addendum to prior review)
Review: My previous review contained a typo - only the top 50 (fifty) top Cubs players seasons are covered not the top 100 as I stated.

Also, in retrospect I can think of another group other than SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) members that will love this book. That group is the legion of fanatic Cubs fans out there(and my, my, my there are a lot of us aren't there?).

I had fond memories of seasons past as I paged through this book. This book is a very effective time machine if you have lived, suffered, and rejoiced through Cub seasons past and present.

Just think of it as a 100+ year High School Yearbook. It's just too bad that the publishing date wasn't 1999 - it would have been interesting to see how Sammy Sosa's 1998 season did once the authors' sabermetric grid was applied to it!

Go Cubs!

/fwa