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Clearing the Bases: The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century | 
| Author: Allen Barra
Creator: Bob Costas
Publisher: Bison Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $7.95 (47%)
New (23) Used (7) from $8.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 649208
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0803217633
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.35709730904
EAN: 9780803217638
ASIN: 0803217633
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Who was better, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays? At their peak, who was more valuable, Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams? If Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax, and Roger Clemens had pitched at the same time against the same hitters, who would have won the most games? If Jackie Robinson had been white, would he be deserving of the Hall of Fame? Who was the greatest all-around player of the last century? Clearing the Bases is the first book to tackle these and many other of baseball’s most intriguing questions and offer hard, sensible answers—answers based on exhaustive research and analysis. Sports journalist Allen Barra, whose weekly sports column “By the Numbers” attracted millions of fans and whose outspoken opinions are discussed regularly on National Public Radio, takes on baseball’s toughest arguments. Using stats and methods he himself has developed, Barra takes you to the heart of baseball's ultimate question—“Who's the best?”—in this, the ultimate baseball debate book, one guaranteed to spark thousands of heated discussions and to supply the fuel for thousands more.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Not a base-clearing hit, more like a double August 29, 2008
I've read Allen Barra's stuff for a long time, and I was pleased that some of his thoughts had been compiled in this book. He's one of the best around at popularizing the often-exotic and insular statistical analysis that has become central to understanding baseball in the last 20 years.
Barra uses advanced stats to ask some of the prominent questions that serious baseball fans like to debate: Who's the Greatest Player Ever?; Should Person X Be in the Hall of Fame?; Which Pitcher is Better?
These are fun questions, and Barra goes at them quickly, yet without sacrificing sophistication. He uses all the interesting tools that have been developed to try to compare players across eras, and he reveals some surprising results. The Mickey Mantle vs. Willie Mays chapter is a gem. He's also not afraid to take a stand, such as declaring Mike Schmidt to be arguably the most dominant player ever in the game, based on the fact that Schmidt led his league in more categories than anyone else, and he did it during a time when the caliber of play was very high.
However, the book is marred by some sloppy logic and mistakes. Two examples. Barra challenges the notion that watered-down pitching in baseball in 1961 (a year that the leagues expanded and took in inferior pitchers) helped lead to Roger Maris' home run record. Barra defendsd Maris by saying that hitting should have been watered down, too. That's true -- but it has no bearing on Maris' performance. Maris faced weaker pitchers, and that helped him hit a record number of homers. It doesn't matter that some teams had lousy hitters. On the second one, Barra says that Bill Buckner's fielding error cost the Red Sox the 1986 World Series. Wrong. The game was tied when Buckner made the error, so the game simply would have continued if Buckner had made the play. For Barra, who was writing for "The Village Voice" at the time, to make that mistake, is shocking.
Anyway, the book is a fun casual read. But it needed an editor who knew something about baseball.
 nice at debunking of baseball myths February 7, 2008
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
This book reviews a lot of baseball myths and debates and sheds new light on ones the experts thought were settled. As a Yankee fan from the 1950s and 1960s I was particularly interested in the chapters on Ruth and DiMaggio and questions about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Barra address questions such as: Was Mays really a better all-around player than Mantle? Should Joe Jackson be in the Hall of Fame? Should Roger Maris be in the Hall of Fame? Was the asterisk on Maris' home run record a myth? Would Jackie Robinson have made the Hall of Fame if he were not black? Was Juan Marichal slighted when compared with Koufax and Gibson? How great was Mike Schmidt? Barra address these and many other issues with sometimes startling but always convincing agruments and statistics to back up his points.
Many of the debates have been clouded by emotion and Barra tries to take a very dispassionate and objective approach to the issues. The result is some new and refreshing ideas that provoke thought and controversy!
A sabermatrician's wet dream January 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't participate in fantasy baseball but I do appreciate the amount of research Allen Barra has put into this book. Part of the intrigue of any sports books like this is the inevitability of more arguments, counterarguments and rebuttals. I agree with some of his points, his defense of Jackie Robinson as a Hall of Fame 2nd baseman on just his statistics, and I also disagree with some of his other arguments, like ranking Roger Clemens as the best pitcher of all time. Interesting read for all baseball fans.
If you like to think and argue about baseball, just order this now... November 3, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you are the type of person who enjoys the serious discussion of baseball comparisons...like, "Who's better: Mays or Mantle?" Or "Who's the best _____ in baseball ever?" than this is pretty much an essential purchase for you. Just go click on the order button and you'll be fine.
Barra's book is a series of short "arguments" or meditations on various subjects. Most of them are on baseball, although he tosses a few about football and basketball in at the end. They are written as if he was given a theory, and he feels compelled to provide proof or evidence of said theory.
For example, he takes on the hallowed legend of Babe Ruth, tries to break it down into comparisons which debunk some of the "myth" surrounding his legacy, and then surprisingly, ends up validating much of his greatness.
He has some interesting insights, like the segment on the 1919 Cincinnati Reds. Who knew they were so good? He has an elegant discussion comparing Joe DiMaggio with Ted Williams.
There were startling (for me) revelations and discoveries; players who I never appreciated, like Lefty Grove, Juan Marichal and Tim Raines.
His defense of Mike Schmidt as one of our all-time greats reads like a fantastic legal closing argument. You will walk away convinced that Schmidt may be one of the, if not the most, underrated baseball players ever.
The whole Mantle/Mays thing gets a bit bogged down in statistical analysis, and in the end, I came away with they were both so freaking great, we can leave it at that. I do agree that Mays isn't as revered as Mantle, and he probably should be.
The short football chapters (and one basketball missive comparing Chamberlain to Russell) at the end are interesting, but out of place. I think they're inserted to show he can write and think about other sports. Read them separately, at a later date.
There's a lot of good stuff here: an appreciation of Roger Clemens that avoid fawning, Minnie Minoso's unrecognized stature as a cultural icon, practical ideas regarding on-base percentage/average...
... what keeps this from a five-star book is that sometimes the book gets inundated in statistical gobbledygook and loses it's momentum. Don't get me wrong: I love stats and numbers like any self-respecting baseball nut. It's just that sometimes there's a bit TOO much here...but maybe this is a minor quibble.
Baseball fans will love this stuff...I sure did.
close but no championship ring there, Shula August 19, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Fascinating book but sometimes raw data needed a bit of refining. How about next time giving us something we can comprehend quickly when, say, comparing Ted Williams to Joe DiMaggio without having to pull out a calculator to figure HRs/plate appearance, or what their typical season was stat-wise, etc.?
I liked the fact he gave Juan Marichal and Minnie Minoso their due and also made a strong argument for Roger Clemens as being the equal at least of any pitcher in history. At times, though, you can see Barra has an axe to grind which is fine, but I think his arguments would work better without that slant.
I also think in any argument baseball writers have they should take into consideration post-season play. I mean, many consider statheads consider Derek Jeter to be less than the greatest thing to play SS in years but they base this ONLY on regular season stats. I'll take Jeter any day over any SS out there in the post-season....but I digress (and I'm not even a NYY fan...go figure).
I didn't quite get why we needed some basketball and football chapters in a book clearly subtitled about baseball. I enjoyed the pieces but they need to retitle the book and maybe double the size. This book really is way too short as the baseball stuff only goes to 213 pages so the stuff on other sports looks like padding to me.
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