The Book of Baseball Literacy
Author: David H. Martinez
Amazon info
This is almost an incredibly excellent book. First, I should note that it is a reference book, it is not meant to be read straight through (which is how I read it). The book is designed to provide an in-depth baseball literacy, it is a book for baseball fans, not baseball novices. The book is divided into interesting sections, including the obvious - such as "Players" and "Team", but also "Literature" and "Numbers". And there is a section on terminology, where I learned the details of the infield fly rule.
The highlights of the book are Martinez' deep knowledge of baseball, his love of the game, and his natural writing style. He is definitely a knowledgable "old-school" baseball guy.
But there is one serious problem. The book, advertised as "new" by the library, is actually six years old. And the world of baseball was a different place in 2000. Barry Bonds, pictured on the cover, had yet to rise to lofty heights - and to become somewhat disgraced. For example, Martinez mentions Babe Ruth's slugging percentage of .847 as a record that would probably never be broken as no one had come with 80 points in decades. And in 2000, the world looked like that - even McGwire's amazing 1998 season was 95 points below Ruth. But in 2001 Barry Bonds broke the record with .863 and notched the fourth and fifth best all time results in 2004 (.812) and 2002 (.799). Related to this is the complete lack of any mention of steroids. In fact, the reasons that Martinez proposes for the huge offensive numbers in the late 1990s are somewhat laughable and certainly naive - as steroids and other performance enhancing drugs were certainly a key factor.
I would love to see an updated version - it would be an excellent book.
Recommended: Hard core baseball fans for the current version; any baseball fan if there is ever a new version.