Baseball's Best 1,000: Rankings of the Greatest Players of All Time

by Derek Gentile

Using various (and completely subjective) criteria including lifetime statistics, personal and professional contributions to the game at large, sportsmanship, character, popularity with the fans, and more, sports writer Derek Gentile ranks the best players of all time.

Along with a ranking, information on each player is presented, including the teams on which he has played throughout his career, positions played, lifetime statistics, and a brief biography--as well as a photograph. Baseball's Best 1,000 is sure to spark controversy and debate among fans.

Genres: Baseball

672 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Dan Shonka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the fourth edition of Gentile's book. It is pretty enjoyable, and like some of the blurbs that go with this book it will more than likely cause some debate. Derek Gentile gives each of the 1000 ranked players a nice career summary. He comments on many of their personal records and many of the break-throughs (catchers receiving pitches one-handed for example). This was an enormous task, no doubt, so I'll resist busting Mr. Gentile's chops for his rankings. However, I wonder about the editing of this edition. There are several typo mistakes (on the author or the typesetter?), and in one player's case, his career stat line was of a position player not the pitcher that he was. Also, each player's name is listed with his positions, years played and teams. It's the team part I wonder about. Did Gentile list the teams in chronological order, or just put 'em down? I didn't look at them close enough to know (lazy me), but I thought several of them were listed rather willy-nilly. I originally rated this a 3-star, but I've added a fourth for this reason: reading Derek Gentile's book brought back many memories of my dad, a big baseball (Cubbies) fan. Many times I'd read about a player and wish my dad was still around so I could ask him about his memories, or discuss the interesting placements of various players. A memory of my dad is easily worth a one star upgrade. I recommend this book for that reason, and the fact that it will probably have you dusting off you old Baseball Encyclopedia or your books by Bill James.

[Josh Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rankings are questionable at best (Randy Johnson below Wes Ferrell and Don Sutton?!), but most maddeningly, although this book claims to be a revised edition (published in 2017), many of the player bios have not been updated since at least the mid-2000's. Sloppy work all around.