The Ultimate Baseball Book: The Classic Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Game

by Harris Lewine and Daniel Okrent

Book Overview

THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK has more than lived up to its name. Spanning the complete history of the sport from the fledgling leagues in the late 1870s to the powerhouses of the 1990s and revealing in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618056688
• ISBN13: 9780618056682
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 9.1" x 12.0"

Customer Reviews

marvelous

If you're interested in the history of baseball, I think you will enjoy this book no matter what your level of expertise on the subject. I agree with the previous reviewer's comment about it being the best of its breed. They say Ken Burns called this "the Cadillac of baseball books," and you can certainly see the influence it must've had on his Baseball film-series. It's a nice fat book, at over 400 pages, and there are plenty of historical photos and illustrations included on practically every page, making it truly a browser's delight. With the expansive scope, covering 1876-1999, those who range from really serious to fanatical about baseball history may be left wanting more in terms of depth and description of many topics. Nevertheless, I found the level of detail impressive and I believe that almost anyone with an interest in the game will really enjoy this excellent book.

A great historical volume on the greatest game we play.

The version of this that I read was published in 1981, so it's a tad out of date, but the most compelling parts of the book are doubtless still present in later versions. This book makes a bold claim, and while I don't know that there can be any single Ultimate book on baseball, this one comes reasonably close.The book splits itself into nine "innings" (though newer versions may have changed this format), splitting baseball history into nine segments and accompanying each historical section with an excellent essay on subjects pertaining to the relevant era. Some of the essays are on subjects like Enos Slaughter's Gas House style of play with the Cardinals, or Fenway Park, or the Brooklyn Dodgers of old, or Connie Mack. In all, the history is pretty thorough and very enjoyable for fans of the game.Most baseball books are written with a nasty, thinly-veiled contempt for the contemporary game of baseball. "Too many home runs", these authors sniff, "not enough hit-and run". TUBB has none of this attitude present in the historical bits, though it does come through in some of the essays. In the latter innings of the book, the historical chapters describe the evolution of the game very ably, and even suggest that the modern game is more interesting and balanced than ever before, due to the all-around athleticism of many players.I'm borrowing the 1981 edition of TUBB from my dad, but I will probably buy the Expanded and Updated 2000 version for myself. This is a great book for baseball fans, especially those of us whose earliest baseball memories involve people like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Dwight Gooden... it's good for us whippersnappers to learn some history.

Still Best of Breed

I read the first edition of this book, I guess more than 20 years ago now. I was dazzled immediately, in the very first inning, by both the prose and the great photos. The most amazing thing (to me anyway)is Nemec's historical report. Somehow even though he's writing the more recent chapters more than 10 years apart you'd never know it. You'd think of him as a 19th century guy from what else he's written, but his 1990's chapter flows with the same spark and flavor as his first chapter on the early years written way back when. Most of the other pieces hold up very well too, especially the one on DiMaggio and Richter's look at Montreal baseball before the Expos. Let's all hope this crew is still around in another decade to do another update.

One of the greatest and most influential baseball books ever

The ttiel sounds a tad off-putting, but the book delivers. It's an excellent combination of narrative history, idiosyncratic essays and beautiful photos about the national pastime. The style has been often duplicated since but never equalled