- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton (April 27 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393320081
- ISBN-13: 978-0393320084
- Product Dimensions: 23.3 x 17.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 612 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,232,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
There are good teams, and there are great teams, and then there are teams that cross into legend where a case can be built for naming them the best team of all time. The Cubs of Tinker to Evers to Chance. The Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig, and later DiMaggio and Dickey, and, later still, Mantle and Maris and Ford, and still later, O'Neill and Jeter and Williams and Cone. The '29 A's, the '55 Dodgers, the '70 Orioles, the Big Red Machine. Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein identify 15 of these powerhouses, assess the overall stats and individual achievements of each, examine the durability of the numbers, and compare and contrast them relative to one another in an attempt to identify the one team that truly lived up to--and exceeded--its potential to stand alone.
It's a fascinating performance, as insightful as it is argumentative. (Neyer, a columnist for ESPN.com, and Epstein, a former baseball exec, don't always see eye to eye, and some of their disagreements are posted as dialogues.) Along the way, they debunk some myths (Mantle's 565-foot home run) and create new stats to test relative performance (one makes Johnny Bench the best catcher of all time--no problem there--with Mickey Cochrane second). Poignantly, they also project some "what-ifs," as in what if Lou Gehrig had stayed healthy for the '39 Yankees.
After parsing and reparsing team after team, Neyer and Epstein arrive at their conclusion, and while they pretty much disagree on places 2 through 15, they manage to present a unified front for No. 1. It's a team in pinstripes, but probably not the first--or second--to come to mind. Given the precision with which way they lay out their case, you'll have to work awfully hard to overturn their verdict. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Baseball teams thrive on arguments. This book will start enough of them to keep the Hot Stove League in session all year long. -- George F. Will
Few athletes are part of one baseball dynasty. I was fortunate enough to be part of two. This book captures the unique characteristics that make great teams great. -- Davey Johnson
It's wonderful to read a book by someone who really knows something about the great teams, knows things that I don't know, knows even important things that I didn't know. This is the book that everybody else who writes about great teams, for the next 30 years, will have to begin by reading, just so they know what they're talking about. -- Bill James
Few athletes are part of one baseball dynasty. I was fortunate enough to be part of two. This book captures the unique characteristics that make great teams great. -- Davey Johnson
It's wonderful to read a book by someone who really knows something about the great teams, knows things that I don't know, knows even important things that I didn't know. This is the book that everybody else who writes about great teams, for the next 30 years, will have to begin by reading, just so they know what they're talking about. -- Bill James
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The Pennant Race: On the evening of July 29, 1906, the Cubs sat atop the National League standings with a brilliant 61-26 record, but that was good for just a five-game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The Pennant Race: On the evening of July 29, 1906, the Cubs sat atop the National League standings with a brilliant 61-26 record, but that was good for just a five-game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Informative, but doesn't answer any age-old questions,
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This review is from: Baseball Dynasties (Paperback)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading the book, but I found the book to be lacking in continuity. It's a difficult book to read from cover-to-cover due to the abundance of statistical analysis, but all of the number-crunching done in the book is rather anticlimactic. The issue of "who is the greatest team of all time" is handled more as a sidebar than as the main theme of the book. I thought the authors would have been better served discussing the statistical quirks that were generated by the number crunching and different types of 'dynasties' discussed (like the 1975-1985 Royals). Instead, we got a lot of different methods to conclude "Boy, those 1961 Yankees sure did hit a lot of homers", which isn't very interesting. In terms of personal opinion, I was disappointed that a 3-peat team like the 1972-1974 A's was left out of the book because they didn't win 100+ games in the regular season. It demonstrated that although there was a plethora of statistical references, the overall criteria as to deciding what constitutes a dynasty was as vague and unexplained as the authors' opinions on the greatest dynasty of all-time.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Tad Too Much Stats,
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Sure to start an arguement,
By
This review is from: Baseball Dynasties (Paperback)
Neyer and Epstein's Baseball Dynasties is an entertaining and easy read that is also a thought-provoking book about baseball. Neyer (a regular columnists on ESPN.com) and Epstein (former managment for Orioles and Padres) introduce a method of measuring the dominance of teams -- the SD score. It is a way of estimating whether a team's success was truly a result of being a giant among men -- or whether it was because the talent in the league was so unevenly distributed. They identify 15 of the most dominant teams and break them down -- offense, defense, pitching, bench, how they were built, how the fell, etc. Each chapter is also graced with several small essays discussing fascinating aspects of each team.The book has its flaws. The attributing of each little section to Rob or Eddie could have been left out and makes the book feel choppy. I think it could have benefited by being written after Bill James' book on Win Shares (then again, so could almost every baseball book). It might even have been preferable for them to talk about lesser-known teams or fewers details but more teams. Do we really need more information on the 1927 Yankees? I didn't think so. I also think they should have looked at different KIND of dynasties. For example, teams like the 90's Braves, 80's Cards, 60's Reds, 60's-70's Pirates or 70's-80's Royals that weren't particularly dominating in any one year or short span of years, but were consistently good for a long span of time. Interviews with old-timers would have been nice but probably impractical. But I guess these complaints fall under one category -- the book is way too short. This subject deserves a "Historical Abstracts"-like tome that you could really wade into over the course of a few weeks rather than one you can zip through on the weekend. But the book makes up for these short-comings with the fairness with it treats the topic. You'll realize that the early 50's Yanks weren't that good, despite their five championships. The league was just poorly balanced. You'll realize the early 70's Orioles were truly a great team. It avoids the common trait in "best teams that ever was" arguements of assuming that whatever team dominated the youth of the authors was the best. It's the best book of its type out there.
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