50 Biggest Baseball Myths

Rating:
Summary: Excelent book.
Review: I enjoyed this book. I found it hard to put down. It is clear and concise and the author does a wonderful job in arguing his case. A nice book with great insight into the history of Baseball

Rating:
Summary: Excelent book.
Review: I enjoyed this book. I found it hard to put down. It is clear and concise and the author does a wonderful job in arguing his case. A nice book with great insight into the history of Baseball

Rating:
Summary: Maybe I'm biased
Review: Maybe I'm a bit biased, because I am a contributor to this book, but I found this book both highly entertaining and informational. Like, who knew that Jackie Robinson wasn't the first African-American player in the majors? Or that baseball wasn't really invvented in Cooperstown, N.Y.? Or that the Babe wasn't really calling that infamous home run? All these myths are exploded and painstakingly researched (by yours truly) and tell a riveting story of baseball. I highly recommend this book to any diehard baseball and/or trivia fans.

Rating:
Summary: rather silly
Review: This book falls into the category of "interesting tidbits about baseball". So far, so good. It is an ancient and honorable genre. The problem is that it is in the sub-genre of "and I have a gimmick!" These gimmicks usually produce unfortunate results, as the interesting tidbits have to be shoehorned into the format.

As an example, there is "Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs (as we'd reckon them)." In the early 20th century, what we now call a walk-off home run would only be scored as the lowest hit forcing in the winning run. Consider a tied game in the bottom of the ninth inning, with a runner on third base. A fly ball over the fence would be scored a triple, as a triple implies that the man on third advanced. (This seems odd today, but we still score hits this way if the ball doesn't go over the fence. Consider bottom of the ninth, tied score, bases loaded. The batter hits a line drive into the right field corner. This is a single. The scorer does not speculate how many bases the batter would have taken under other circumstances.) This situation happened to Ruth, which was correctly (under the rules in force) scored a triple. Under modern scoring rules it would be a home run, bringing Ruth's lifetime total to 715.

I would expect any baseball fan with a sense of history to find this interesting. But where is the myth? Ask any baseball fan how many homers Ruth hit and the answer will be "714" and this answer is correct. How a hit is scored is a matter of rule, and by rule these things are calculated according to the rules in force at the time. The fan will never "714 (as we'd reckon them)" unless he already knows that 715th homer bit of trivia. That wording is simply semantic gamesmanship designed to convert a trivia factoid into a myth.

This is the general tenor of the book: carefully word the "myth" to make it untrue. "Female baseball players have never competed against men on the professional level." Is this a myth? Do people sit in bars talking about this, giving the wrong answer? I doubt it. Indeed, ask the question in a manner which emphasizes "on the professional level" and you would likely get the correct answer. Ask it so that the hearer thinks you are talking about major league baseball and you can manipulate the answer. So what? The game is to read the "myth" carefully to find the zinger. "The New York Yankees established the greatest dominance over the competition in the history of organized ball." Well, sure: define "greatest dominance" and, for that matter, "organized ball." The author goes with the 1919-1925 minor league Baltimore Orioles, who won seven consecutive pennants. I would argue for the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, who played 65 games and were undefeated. Which is "greater dominance": totally dominating over a shorter period, or somewhat less dominating over a longer period. This is material for a philosophical discussion over a few beers, but it isn't a myth.

That being said, many of the factoids are interesting. But the book would be much better without the silly gimmick.