Leadoff Batters of Major League Baseball - by Herman O Krabbenhoft (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Every sport has its subtleties, and in baseball, one subtlety is the batting line-up. Leadoff batters can make or break a team. Who are the men who have taken that position, and how have they performed in their important role?

From 1900 through 2005, the major leagues' leadoff batters for more than 160,000 games are covered in this reference work. The first of the book's five parts discusses the annual records of the principal leadoff batters. Part Two identifies the principal leadoff batter for each team in each year, as well as the top career leadoff batters. Part Three presents composite statistics for those players with five or more principal leadoff batter seasons. Part Four looks at leadoff home runs, and Part Five offers essays on assorted leadoff batter achievements, such as RBIs, runs scored, and awards and honors. Appended to the text is a discussion of the accuracy of the statistics and a list of "Make It Happen" award winners.

Review Quotes

"remarkably thorough"-ARBA; "all you need to know"-Sports Collectors Digest; "Herman Krabbenhoft has set the standard for rigorous study with this volume of baseball's leadoff hitters. Not content with just a sample of games as a data source, Krabbenhoft collected the details for every game from 1900 to the present. He has taken this mountain of data and sifted it in creative ways to reach some very interesting conclusions. This is no dry volume of dusty numbers, however, as it is the stories associated with each player that are brought to life. Hats off for a sterling investigation"-Dave Smith, Retrosheet; "Herman Krabbenhoft is a respected baseball historian. He brings his scientific methods to the study of the game to produce well-documented, well-thought-out research. In recent years, he has become the leading authority on baseball's leadoff hitters. Krabbenhoft has studied statistics and box scores to learn as much as anyone else about the topic and poured his knowledge into this book. This work will become a standard reference in the baseball historian's library"-David Vincent, co-author of The Midsummer Classic: A Complete History of Baseball's All-Star Game; "with his encyclopedia of "Leadoff Batters", Herman Krabbenhoft has put baseball stat freaks and crusty old researches in awe again. He found an intriguing subject, attacked it and somehow managed to compile a mind-numbing load of precise information, and then separated that info in readable charts, graphs, and text. Year-by-year, and player-by-player, it seems to be all there for the inquisitive baseball page turner. The only problem for a reader is trying to come up with a realistic question that Herm has not already answered. Definitely a classic work"-Richard "Dixie" Tourangeau, author of the Play Ball! calendar (1981-2005).

About the Author

Award winner Herman O. Krabbenhoft is a retired research chemist. His articles have appeared in Baseball Digest, The Sporting News, Baseball America, Baseball Weekly and the Baseball Research Journal. He lives in Glenville, New York.