Arguing about the merits of players is the baseball fan's second favorite pastime and every year the Hall of Fame elections spark heated controversy. In a book that's sure to thrill--and infuriate--countless fans, Bill James takes a hard look at the Hall, probing its history, its politics and, most of all, its decisions.

Arguing about the merits of players is the baseball fan's second favorite pastime and every year the Hall of Fame elections spark heated controversy. In a book that's sure to thrill--and infuriate--countless fans, Bill James takes a hard look at the Hall, probing its...

When Bill James published his original Historical Baseball Abstract in 1985, he produced an immediate classic, hailed by the Chicago Tribune as the "holy book of baseball." Now, baseball's beloved "Sultan of Stats" (The Boston Globe) is back with a fully revised and updated edition for the new millennium.

Like the original, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is really several books in one. The Game provides a century's worth of American baseball history, told one decade at a time, with energetic facts and figures about How, Where, and by Whom the...

Pitchers, the pitches they throw, and how they throw them -- these days it's the stuff of constant scrutiny, but there's never been anything like a comprehensive source for such information. That's what preeminent baseball analyst Bill James and ESPN.com baseball columnist Rob Neyer realized over lunch more than a dozen years ago. Since then, they've been compiling the centerpiece of this book, the "Pitcher Census," which lists specific information for nearly two thousand pitchers, ranging throughout the history of professional baseball. The Guide also offers:

• A...

Now in paperback, Michael Coffey's wonderful book about baseball's holy grail, the perfect game: "The best baseball book of the...season" (Booklist).

There have been only fifteen perfect games pitched in the modern era of baseball: The great Cy Young fittingly hurled the first one, in 1904, and Randy Johnson pitched the last one, in May 2004. In between, some great and famous pitchers--Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, Jim Bunning, and Don Larsen--performed the feat, as did those lesser-known, like Charlie Robertson and Len Barker. Fifteen in 160,000 games: The odds are staggering....

Marvin Miller, the first executive director to the Major League Baseball Players Association, recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever, and thereby raised salaries enormously.