100 Years of Major League Baseball
From SoSH
Authors: David Nemec and Saul Wisnia
Publisher: Publications International, Ltd.
Date Published: 2000
Summary: Despite a banal and somewhat unappealing yellow and blue cover, this book presents a very readable and colorful account of the history of baseball from 1901-2000. After a brief synopsis of the development of baseball in the 1800s, this book takes the reader through the 20th century one decade at a time. Each chapter begins with a 10-15 page summary of the dominant events and themes of the decade, highlighting the major changes of that decade and recognizing important players and events that helped shape the game. The rest of the chapter is devoted to a more detailed account of each year's World Series champion and a highlighted "Player of the Year" for each year (although the focus is on the player's career, not just their performance during that season). Each season's writeup also includes a bulleted "Season's Best" section, identifying MVPs, records, memorable games, and star players of that year.
This book can be utilized in a number of ways. One could read the decade-by-decade summaries and learn about how the game changed over the years. Alternatively, the reader could simply read the articles on each World Series winner, or it could be read as a "Who's Who in MLB", since the book contains 100 player profiles (one for each season). The index also allows the reader to look up a specific player. Although the writeups themselves aren't tremendously engaging, they provide a decent introduction to decades, players, and World Series. The photos add tremendously to the book and provide an entertaining "flip-through" option for those not inclined to read each article carefully.
In short, this book is a nice one to keep on the shelf and to pull out as a reference for any given season, but it's also an enjoyable one to flip through randomly and glance at pictures or year-by-year results.
