Should I buy a new one?

[tyruschen]

Hi, I'm from Taiwan and I just finished the Abstract of 1988 edition, but I found there are more editions and this confuses me. Should I buy more editions cause there're lot differences between them? Is it worth? If so, what edition is the best?

My English is not good, hope you know what I mean, thanks very much!

[sweaver]

First we'll have to figure out what you are reading. The 1988 Baseball Abstract, perhaps? That was the last edition of that particular book, published for the general market from 1982-88. If you want a current similar book, you may want to look for a Baseball Prospectus for 2004, available at www.baseballprospectus.com. There is also a Bill James Handbook, available now with the past year's statistics, though not so much written essays.

It depends on what you are looking for, I suppose.

[Wolf Hopper]

tyruschen - to one of your questions - yes, in the various editions of the Bill James' Abstracts, the essays in each are on different baseball topics.

[hmrsf]

tyr, Welcome! Your English is great! Hope you stick around. Go to Icebreakers forum and tell us more about yourself.

[tyruschen]

tyr, Welcome! Your English is great! Hope you stick around. Go to Icebreakers forum and tell us more about yourself.

Thanks very much! I really can feel your passion passing across the Pacific! I really like to talk baseball and read your posts here!

[tyruschen]

First we'll have to figure out what you are reading. The 1988 Baseball Abstract, perhaps? That was the last edition of that particular book, published for the general market from 1982-88. If you want a current similar book, you may want to look for a Baseball Prospectus for 2004, available at www.baseballprospectus.com. There is also a Bill James Handbook, available now with the past year's statistics, though not so much written essays.

It depends on what you are looking for, I suppose.

Thanks for your answer. My edition is 1988, but I heard that James keep updating this book every year... If there are many articles and stats and changes put in new edition, I'll really want to buy one.

And thanks for your recommend of Prospectus 2004, but I have one more question. Isn't Baseball Prospectus a player-by-player-with-scouting-type book? If so, then I think I have some problems to read it from page one to the end....

[sweaver]

The Baseball Abstract by Bill James was published 1982-88, with all-new material each year. Well, about 97% new. He also published a photocopied version starting in 1977 or 1978, but those are rare and hard to come by. You can probably pick up old Baseball Abstracts on ebay or a similar site, and they are still lots of fun to read.

Baseball Prospectus' annual books include an essay on each team, plus brief player-by-player comments. The team essays run 2-3 pages each. It's not just numbers, although like the Abstracts there are a lot of them.

[tyruschen]

The Baseball Abstract by Bill James was published 1982-88, with all-new material each year. Well, about 97% new. He also published a photocopied version starting in 1977 or 1978, but those are rare and hard to come by. You can probably pick up old Baseball Abstracts on ebay or a similar site, and they are still lots of fun to read.

Baseball Prospectus' annual books include an essay on each team, plus brief player-by-player comments. The team essays run 2-3 pages each. It's not just numbers, although like the Abstracts there are a lot of them.

Wow! You can't call a book with 97% all-new material "updated". It's a brand new book! I think I'll try to buy them all on ebay (I bought my only one there) cause I really like to read his writings. I also bought "Whatever happened to the Hall of Fame?" And it really change my point of view.

I would like to read Prospectus too since I enjoy their website, the only problem is it cost too much to ship the book overseas...