NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year An
instant sports classic. -New York Post * Stellar. -The Wall Street Journal * A true
masterwork...880 pages of sheer baseball bliss. -BookPage (starred review) * This is a
remarkable achievement. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed
baseball writer Joe Posnanski The Baseball 100 is an audacious singular and masterly book
that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the
100 greatest players in history with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and
nearly as ambitious The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and
lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the
remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book's introduction Pulitzer
Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels Posnanski must already have lived more than
200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining
stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport? Baseball's legends come
alive in these pages which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game's all-time
greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers unfairly forgotten
All-Stars talents of today and more. He doesn't rely just on records and statistics-he
lovingly retraces players' origins illuminates their characters and places their
accomplishments in the context of baseball's past and present. Just how good a pitcher is
Clayton Kershaw in the twenty-first- century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the
juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe
Ruth's? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium
of baseball's legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro
Leagues men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time
and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to
restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O'Neil to
illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe
Williams outfielders Oscar Charleston Monte Irvin and Cool Papa Bell first baseman Buck
Leonard shortstop Pop Lloyd catcher Josh Gibson and many many more. The Baseball 100 treats
readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Chapter by chapter
Posnanski invites readers to examine common lore with brand-new eyes and learn stories that
have long gone unheard. The epic and often emotional reading experience mirrors Posnanski's
personal odyssey to capture the history and glory of baseball like no one else fueled by his
boundless love for the sport. Engrossing surprising and heartfelt The Baseball 100 is a
magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.
