Guaranteed to spark debate among baseball diehards with its controversial pick for #1 "Elliott Kalb's work is beyond excellent. He thinks in story lines and uses numbers to make compelling and often original points."--Bob Costas In the world of major-league sports, Elliott Kalb, a.k.a "Mr. Stats," is the Sultan of Stats, the Tsar of Trivia, and the Final Word in armchair-athlete disputes. Now, hot on the heels of his controversial bestseller Who's Better, Who's Best in Basketball? comes a book that is guaranteed to raise both hackles and cheers from baseball fans from coast to coast. More than a book of lists, Who's Better, Who's Best in Baseball?: Interweaves numbers, facts, and anecdotes to offer a grand perspective on the entire history of the sport and its 100 all-time greatest of the greats--including players from the Negro Leagues Features interviews with MLB experts, players, and coaches, including Bob Costas, Bud Selig, Vin Scully, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Johnny Bench, and others Argues the popular debate--what means more, modern training and modern medicine, overall athletics, popularity, or genetics?

Applying the analytical methods he developed as a senior editor at "Pro Football Weekly," Silverman ranks the top 75 players in NFL history, from legendary old-timers like Sammy Baugh to present-day superstars like Peyton Manning.

ABC and ESPNUs "Mr. Stats" ranks the NBAUs greatest players of all time in this provocative and comprehensive book.

Filled with biographical anecdotes, batting stats and historical comparisons, here is the one book young fans can use to become instant experts in baseball's great debate. Who is it: Babe Ruth? Ted Williams? Ty Cobb? Mark McGwire? or . . .? Here is your one-stop resource for answering the question all baseball fans ask: Who is the best batter ever? You'll find thirty-two of baseball's greatest hitters, with each player's batting statistics, special achievements and records, along with interesting anecdotes and photographs. With all this great information, Who Is Baseball's Greatest Hitter? is more than just a book of stats. Experienced sports writer Jeff Kisseloff gives young readers the tools to analyze, compare and contrast each player's career batting records. Unlike other baseball books, this one challenges the reader to make his own choices and add his own favorite batters to the debate. Can you match the question on the left with the player on the right? 1) Who hit 755 home Runs? A) Mark McGwire 2) Who hit .367 lifetime? B) Hank Aaron 3) Who has the best home run/at bat ratio? C) Ty Cobb And the big question, which statistic matters most? Who Is Baseball's Greatest Hitter? Answers: 1-B, 2-C, 3-A

What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail. Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant. A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.

In celebration of the 100th issue of Who’s Who in Baseball—one of the game’s most venerable publications—comes a century's worth of the annual's iconic covers, insightful breakdowns of the players featured on those covers, and informative accounts of the baseball history tied to each year’s issue. 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball is a colorful, must-have book of baseball nostalgia for fans of the American Pastime. The start of the baseball season brings with it a host of annual traditions and reminders, and one of the most beloved—the annual Who’s Who in Baseball—arrives on newsstands across the country every Spring Training. The 2015 season marks 100 years of Who’s Who delivering year-by-year stats to generations of baseball fans to quickly and easily track a player’s performance from the minors to the majors. And while Who’s Who is trusted as an authoritative source of baseball statistics and has been used by generations of club executives, broadcasters, journalists, and fans—it’s the publication’s cover subject that each year generates as much hot-stove speculation and buzz as off-season rumors of trades, firings, and pitching rotations. In partnership with Who’s Who in Baseball, this celebratory book features each of the annual's 100 iconic covers in full color along with an account of why the player rated the cover and what was going on in baseball at the time. From baseball’s deadball era to the dawn of “replay review,” this collection offers a gorgeously illustrated history of the game.

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. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred 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 21st-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. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.