With the writing of Baseball's Greatest Players, author David Shiner takes a serious risk. The only thing a sports fan loves more than making a "greatest list" is arguing voluably about why the other guy's list is WRONG! One read of this book will shut down most any other greatest list's chances, and it does so with style, wit, and a healthy dose of readable fact.

In its text, Shiner's book fulfils both the needs of casual fan's interest and the SABR-members desire for solid, quantifiable statistical evidence. But it goes beyond just fact and storytelling to get to the intangibles that separate the players truly great between the white lines from those whose personality and dedication supported not just their teams, but the game itself.

Baseball, more than any other sport (though Canadian hockey fans will rightly take exception to this) carries its past with it. This continuity, this love of the game that both transcends and unites generations is served well by Shiner's writing. Buy Baseball's Greatest Players, and take it to a sports bar near you. You won't go wrong.

As we share Shiner's nostalgia, we rediscover Aaron, Mays, McCovey, Mantle, and Gibson, old heros, old memories. Baseballs Greatest Players, The Saga Continues is more than a Who's Who of baseball, it's a way of life, a catalog of events, a collection of memories. As Shiner reveals the greatest players, we, who are old enough to remember, bask in their glory and relive our own unachieved ambitions.

But Shiner does more than take us back, he bundles the past with the present and into the future, tyingthe memories together forever in our minds. McGuire's record-setting season rekindles other home run hitters: Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, even Babe Ruth. We connect to the present, even anticipate the future. McGuire's 70 home run season triggers a vision of people diving into San Francisco Bay to retrieve the balls Barry Bonds his in 2001, the year he surpassed McGuire's record.

Baseball fans will love this book, others will like it. It's clearly, simply, and accurately presented and guaranteed to stir a memory or two.

It's hard not to enjoy this well written, easily readable book on baseball's best players of the past 50 years. Lively anecdotes plus comprehensive (but not boring) analysis shows exactly why these are the best players of the game. I got a kick out of remembering a lot of things I had almost forgotten, like just how good Bob Gibson was. Some of the facts are amazing, like that in the last two years Sandy Koufax pitched, there were 8 games where the Dodgers only scored one run for him--but he won 4 of them. This book also avoids wallowing in sex and drug garbage. It's a baseball book, not National Enquirer. Balanced, interesting, a really solid piece of work.