Originally published in 1955, this reprint is of the 3rd (1971) edition. In our era of out-of-the-box Go-to telescopes, these details of the English mounting and aberrations in a doublet lens may seem hopelessly dated. Yet there is lots of information here that is hard to find elsewhere. How much magnification is enough? How much is too much? Elsewhere you can find a rule of thumb; here you can find eight rules compared and evaluated. Sidgwick derives many formulae from the basic physics of light; he gets into the details of how vision works; he gives a more detailed analysis of 'seeing' than any other I've read.

3 stars for the average amateur; 5 for the amateur telescope maker or anyone looking to tinker with equipment.

Sidgwick's book is recognized as a classic, but the subject matter is presented rigorously and in the style of a text book. Originally published in 1955, Sidgwick's book relies heavily on British Astronomical Association archives and the overall book has a somewhat European bent. Most of the book is still very relevant and informative, but don't expect unbiased views of currently available super eyepieces or CCD cameras. However, if you want exhaustive information on different types of mounts (and their strengths and weaknesses), hard-to-to-find information on accessories like micrometers and spectroscopes, and analyses of image circles, telescope configurations, and metallic films, this book is for you. Indeed, it is the only book that I've seen with a section that Sidgwick calls "Personal Equation", that is, how much a given observation is influenced by innately human factors like visual acuity, overall health, and fatigue. It is an excellent book: just don't expect a lot of colorful graphs and eye candy.

This book is the best for amateurs. Recommended for al

First, I will admit that I did not buy this book. I did read a a good amount in the local bookstore, though, including their entire section on one team (my Twins) and some more general material in the front. So, this review is incomplete-but I follow the Twins organization very closely, so I feel competent to analyze how this publication stacks up.

I was surprised with how limited the player analysis was, both in depth and breadth. Keep in mind this ignores players at lower levels, since they are unlikely to be "rookies" in the next year or two. The absence of recently-drafted players is not at all compensated by (as one would expect) more in-depth discussion of high-minors prospects. Benson also confuses the point of his book in my opinion...here's an example. He rated Justin Morneau #1 on the Twins list. However, Morneau would not debut until late 2003 at the earliest, considering he's one of the youngest players in AA. Behind him is Michael Cuddyer, who is ready (and now in the Bigs). Morneau is more talented, but I thought the point was players who were near the majors...

Benson also confuses the issue by discussing team's organizational depth as if his analysis was comprehensive. Since he ignores low-minors players, that is obviously not the case. Joe Mauer is not in the book, yet is the best catching prospect in baseball...he may not be ready, but nevertheless this publication is a limited analysis of a team's farm system. If you like a team that [is bad] I would definitely consider picking this up. Otherwise, stick with BA and BP.

This book always gets me in the spirit of the upcoming season, as it seems to be the first of many books to detail the beginning of the 2002 campaign (April seems soooo far away). The book isn't much different from previous versions, but the updated information is always welcome as the winter season is the time to fine tune your fantasy and roto-league rosters. The player reviews can sometimes lack the more detailed information that some may hope to find, but with the limited space they are informative and do give the basic information that many want (in particular the "new" players). The draft recap is also a very informative section for those who may have forgotten wher some players went, and where they fit into thier new teams plans.

This book is an annual release and one of the the better baseball books on the market, even if you are not a roto fan. The book goes through each team's minor league system according to position, each organization's best prospects, evaluation of past drafts, and a ranking of the best propects in the minors. The best parts of this annual are the organizational grid (similar to the ones used by major league GMs) and draft report cards (evaluations of how each MLB team did in their recent drafts). I look forward to this book and its companion guides every year. I did not give this book the highest rating this year because this edition does not really offer any improvements over previous editions and the majority of the player reviews are sketchy, at best. Those who have bought this book's previous editions will not be surprised.

While John Benson was a pioneer - along with Glenn Waggoner - in perpetrating the growth of Fantasy Baseball through their publications time, technology, and passion seem to have deserted Mr. Benson in his lackluster coverage of minor league players.

Benson has been completely passed by a number of other products, both online or off. His analysis of minor leaguers is superficial, and his understanding and presentation of the material is clearly inferior to people like John Sickels, the Baseball Prospectus team, and Ron Shandler. This book is indicative of laziness, both in terms of putting together the cursory, ill-researched commentary, and the scope of material presented. For the same price, you can buy a much better book.

I've been a Benson fan for years, but this is the last one of his books I'll be purchasing. There is no single thing in this book that you can't get, often at a higher quality, for free, on the web.

There is absolutely no reason to purchase this book instead of STATS' Minor League Scouting Report. None whatsoever.

Save your money. I wish I did.

This is the finest book on minor leaguers, even if you are not a rotisserie player. The book is like having all of the teams' organizational grids and analyses all in one place. The amount of research done in such a short time is nothing short of phenomenal. Especially helpful when you go to spring training or when bidding for your rotisserie teams. They detail strengths and weaknesses of so many players that it is incredible. I wonder if my own local team has such a good scouting and research department as John Benson does.

This is a must purchase for a minor league player, scouts, team owners and staff to see where the talent is and general prospects for the future. However, by know means should this book be confused with first hand knowledge of the individual players named as top prospects or others not listed. It just doesn't go far enough to establish objective means for rating players. But it is probably the best source for such information that is available.

The great photographs cannot salvage the horrible text which rambles off into areas completely removed from the subject matter. Benson's commentary is... well... odd. At times you wonder exactly what it is he's talking about. And the few warship photographs exhibit a great deal of bias against all things military. This is particularly odd since the Mariner's Museum, which has attached its name to this drek, earned its reputation primarily on the preservation and salvage of warship artificats from the USS Monitor. Just plain weird, this book should be avoided at all costs expecially if you've ever been a sailor in uniform.

I bought this book with great anticipation expecting a wonderful book on maritime photography. I am a fan of John Szarkowski and love his earlier work. While the choice of images is superb and the reproduction is wonderful, I was extremely disappointed by the text. Written by Richard Benson, it can only be characterized as bizarre, irrelavent and self indulgent. Opportunities to place the work in an historical or artistic context were often lost to flights of fantasy.

I own a signed copy of this book, and it sits proudly on my coffee table. I have read it twice already, and each time I learn something more about a specific photograph which I had not realized before. A great collection of images, from the Civil War to imported VWs on the dock in Baltimore, MD.

Don't be deceived. This is not the Benson's A TO Z GUIDE of years past, which featured thousands of players (including virtually all minor leaguers with a shot at the majors), along with detailed scouting reports and statistics. Instead, this previously indispensable Roto-resource has been restructured and merged with Glen Waggoner's Roto rulebook. To make room, hundreds of players have been cut and the information pared back. Now, it features only major leaguers and high profile prospects with much briefer scouting reports.

If you'd like to see this book published in the old format next year, make sure you complain to John Benson and Diamond Library Publishers as I have .... In the meantime, you can try Ron Shandler's BASEBALL FORECASTER 2002 ANNUAL REVIEW, or John Sickle's STATS MINOR LEAGUE SCOUTING NOTEBOOK 2002 if you want something that focuses on prospects only. Shandler's analytical tools have probably surpassed those used by Benson's people anyway. Benson seems to be treading water while Shandler's projections and strategy recommendations have been growing more sophisticated.

If you grab this book expecting to get the latest news on player movement, position battles, and up-to-date player values, you will be disappointed. If you are a person who thinks you know it all about rotisserie baseball strategy, you, too, will be disappointed as this book spends a great deal of time talking strategy for off-season, draft day, and in-season. I personally enjoyed the read on strategy and am constantly reminded of areas I must stay focussed upon. The player profiles are thin and the player dollar values can be debated, but this book is written in the 4th quarter of 2002. We are a long way from Spring Training, so I use this as a starting point in the 2003 season and will use my favorite web-sites and projections for draft preparations. I do recommend this book for the average rotisserie baseball player, as its strategy discussions are valuable, and its player discussions are a good start. For the fanatic, don't buy this book and get disappointed. Instead, look to Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster 2003 Annual or Baseball Prospectus for all the analytical player information you can shake a bat at.

They listened to the critics. The 2003 version of this Baseball annual dedicates more then half the book to detailed analysis on every players, and more in depth review on prospects then they had in the past 2 years. Much less space is wasted on jokes and theory, and much more space is used to provide in depth reviews of every player. If you are looking for a good place to get started for your 2003 roto season, buy the book.

I used this text book when I was a student and found it confusing because it often skipped steps and used short-cuts in analysis. Simple, straight-forward, explainations are best for the beginning engineering student. This was not a good beginner's book. On the positive side, it may be a good reference book for the experienced civil engineer.

Keep your subscription to the Harvard Business Review, but don't buy this book. Shapiro doesn't add much with his dribble of dabbling comments, and his preachy tone gets to be a bit much at times. If you haven't regularly been reading the HBR, or need some introduction to this area, this book is not bad for an introduction or subject review, though.

Too much attention is focused on quantity of players, and too little about the quality of information given. To call some of the players in the book marginal would be playing them a high compliment. Occasionally, the information is insightful (for instance, the person writing about the players in the Phillies organization), but too often the capsules are void of any useful info. We are informed that Matt Clement (Padres) is worth watching because he struck out a lot of batters. Oh. Thanks. How hard does he throw? What pitches does he throw? Maybe next year someone involved with this book can tell me. --David Macia