The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball's Chosen Players
Selected Book Details
- Hardcover
- Edition: 1
- Author: Howard Megdal
- Publisher: Harper
- Release Date: April 2009
- ISBN-10: 0061558435
- ISBN-13: 9780061558436
- List Price: $22.99
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryFrom the icons of the game to the players who got their big break but never quite broke through, The Baseball Talmud provides a wonderful historical narration of Major League Jewish Baseball in America. All the stats, the facts, the stories, and the (often unheralded) glory. The Baseball Talmud reveals that there is far more to Jewish baseball than Hank Greenberg's powerful slugging and Sandy Koufax's masterful control. From Ausmus to Zinn, Berg to Kinsler, Holtzman to Yeager, and many others, Megdal draws upon the lore and the little-known details that increase our enjoyment of the game, including:
But this is more than just stories. Megdal, a stat geek himself, uses the wealth of modern sabermetrics to determine the greatest Jewish players at each position, the all-time Jewish All-Star Team, and how they would rate against the greatest teams in baseball history, from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1998 New York Yankees. The Baseball Talmud rewrites the history of Jewish baseball and is a book that every baseball fan should own. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Great Book
Rating:
This book tells you everything you wanted to know about Jewish Ball players. Found out things I didn't know. Great. Bought these as gifts for friends.
A fun book to read
Rating: 
I enjoyed reading this book. It presented a lot of information of which I was unaware.
However this is a book to pass onto friends and not one that would remain in my library.
How Good Is Jewish All-Star Team?
Rating:
This is a good book. By my count it lists 159 players by position. Some,of course, are quite famous. Others really obscure. Perhaps only playing a few innings or games. But, hey they made it to the big leagues. Which is certainly an accomplishment. The author uses both traditional and modern statistics to justify his choices. His criteria of Jewishness is liberal. Taking those who converted as well as those with one Jewish parent. It must have taken a lot of research to compile this list. Perhaps he's a modern day physiognomist. It would have been nice to have included photographs of those included as well as their career statistics both major and minor league. For those who may be interested in the topic there were several other books previously published. The Jewish Baseball Hall Of Fame by Erwin Lynn (1987). Ellis Island To Ebbets Field by Peter Levine(1992) Big Book Of Jewish Baseball by Joachim & Peter Horvitz (2001). So this update is timely allowing for the addition of newer players.
Chapter 14 of the book discusses how the chosen team might fare against some very good regular teams of the past. The author concludes that the Jewish team would do extremely well. He concludes the chapter saying "let the discussion commence." I have no problems with his player rankings. But I do find it troublesome that he's playing an all-star Jewish Team against regular teams. Really not apples to apples.
I have a Diamond Mind computer baseball simulation game that is quite accurate. It provides all the teams from 1927-present. You can play past seasons or different era teams against each other or make up your own teams by drafting players. This league was played by picking the players best, or arguably best, season not by career totals so you could, for instance, choose 1927 Babe Ruth.
In any event, I thought it would be interesting to see how some ethnically chosen all-star teams would come out playing a 160 game season. Six teams were chosen. I originally wanted to include an Asian team but had difficulty completing a roster. So to complete the league I picked a group of players I considered to be kind of oddfellows. Who had had various issues thru their careers involving personality disorders,crime,drugs,goofy behavior. I played this league in 2005 before Steroids became a full blown issue. So that wasn't a criteria. The Sluggers were comprised of famous players not ethnically identified. So they were basically your White team.
W L PCT RUNS RUNS AG ERA TEAM BA
Regular All-Star Sluggers 101 59 .631 1093 894 5.00 .296
Darktown Panthers 96 64 .600 1045 822 4.45 .279
Latin Kings 88 72 .550 923 893 4.94 .272
Italia Whoppers 83 77 .519 899 811 4.51 .274
Oddfellows 65 95 .406 775 947 5.41 .274
Maccabees 47 113 .294 810 1178 6.65.261
Here are a few statistical highlights:
Al Rosen came in 9th in league batting average at .309 behind the leader George Brett at .356 Hank Greenberg batted .300. Brett led the league with 234 hits. Rosen had 204 and Greenberg 191.
Hank Greenberg was 7th with an on base percentage of .379. Al Rosen was 10th with .374. The leader was Barry Bonds at .420.
Hank Greenberg was second in slugging percentage with .655. Al Rosen was 8th with .584 both behind Barry Bonds at .719.
Home Runs were Bonds (73) Greenberg #2 with 66 and Rosen tied for #4 with 49.
RBI's Bonds 180, Greenberg #2 with 151 and Rosen #8 with 124.
Stolen Base leaders were Jackie Robinson (31) and Joe Morgan (24). Walks were led by Barry Bonds (135). Hank Greenberg had (82). Leading strikeouts by batters was Richie Allen (188). Greenberg had (165) Shawn Green (113) & Al Rosen (112).
Sandy Koufax was third in pitcher strikeouts (178) behind Vida Blue 216 and Pedro Martinez 213.
Twenty game winners were Fergie Jenkins 21-6 ERA 3.71 & Bob Gibson 20-8
ERA 4.50. There were a total of 18 shutouts thrown. Four by Sal Maglie and three by Dwight Gooden. 3 other pitchers threw 2@ and 5 pitchers threw 1@.
Sandy Koufax ended up the season with a 7-16 record and an ERA of 5.67. Scott Schoenweiss was 2-16 7.48, Steve Stone finished up at 2-17 8.78.Jason Marquis was 6-17 5.78 & Ken Holtzman went 6-16 6.11. Best league ERA was Pedro Martinez 2.79 followed by Sal Maglie 3.35 and Carl Hubbell 3.37.
Of course, this was a tough league to pitch in.
Jewish or not
Rating:
I found, after talking to the author, that many hours of study and investigation was done to write this book. I was also, most pleased, to find all the Jewish baseball players listed. But most of all I greatly appreciated the author contacting me directly. Maybe someday he will do the same writing about basketball players,
A Tip of the Yarmulke to The Baseball Talmud
Rating:
Howard Megdal, author of The Baseball Talmud, was kind enough to send me a copy of his book recently. The book chronicles and ranks Jewish baseball players position-by-position since the game's inception and is an excellent reference for anyone interested in the subject. All of the players hitherto mentioned on Jews in Baseball are analyzed and humanized by Megdal. There are also many, many more players that I haven't even scratched the surface with. Players like Andy Cohen, Moe Berg, and Jose Bautista.
And for anyone who belongs to the Bill James' school of thought, Megdal is a huge proponent of sabermetrics. Of course, he provides you with the traditional statistics, but he goes into greater depth with nifty stats like VORP, WARP, and Pythagorean won-loss record. Megdal also digs up remarkable numbers that often go overlooked (like Lou Boudreau's walk/strikeout ratio in 1948: 98/9). Megdal even enlists the help of a baseball statistician to figure out how effective the All-Jewish team would be in a neutral environment. I won't give away anything. Let's just say they wouldn't be pushovers...
At first, I thought I would skim through The Baseball Talmud and only check out my favorite players, but I really couldn't put it down; it's extremely immersive. From cover to cover, you'll learn something new about players you thought you already knew everything about. You'll see names long forgotten by most fans that conjure up images of different eras, egos, and ballparks. You'll be reminded of how good some of these players were. You'll be encouraged to see how good some of the current players are - and still can be. Most of all, you'll be filled with an indescribable sense of pride. When you see the formidable All-Time Jewish Team Megdal puts together, you may even let your imagination run wild and envision "the eventual cosmic baseball tournament between religions."
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