The 100 Greatest Baseball Autographs

The 100 Greatest Baseball Autographs showcases the most desirable signatures in the history of our National Pastime while detailing the story behind the professional and personal lives of the men who signed their names on the sweet spot.You will find a complete overview of each featured player, including individual autograph analysis along with the story of the man behind the autograph. PSA/DNA experts educate the reader in the specific characteristics of each of these special signatures and what to look for when hunting for the real deal. How many Mickey Mantle autographs were actually signed by clubhouse attendants? Why are there so few Joe Jackson signatures? Selected by highly regarded autograph experts using criteria including rarity, historical importance, and popularity, This title features the most sought-after signatures in the hobby. The book starts out with the absolute pinnacle of this grouping, "The Most Wanted List," showcasing the twenty most desirable autographs in the hobby. The players selected for this book represent a cross section of baseball history, from the very early years to the present. You will meet the men who developed the rules of the game, the field generals who implemented the rules and devised the strategies, as well as the players who blazed the trail for future generations.These players quickly became larger-than-life stars, and fans sought autographs both in-person and through mail requests. As their star power grew, many players' signing habits and signature styles evolved. This information, coupled with the story narratives of the players, makes for a fascinating and fun read.The pages of this book are filled with original autograph images on a variety of mediums, along with corresponding player images, giving you a visual look at the players who signed each desirable autograph. In some cases, the player images appear on a period photo or baseball card, but in many cases the player images are original works by renowned sports artist Arthur K.Miller.

Richly illustrated with nearly 1,000 examples of both autographs and forgeries, this new and expanded edition includes signature studies of all Hall of Famers from the 19th century to the present. Collectors can compare signatures to the examples to determine the genuineness of autographs. Shoeless Joe and the rest of the Black Sox are explored in depth, along with Roger Maris, Gil Hodges and the top 50 non-Hall of Fame autographs. A new price guide examines values of various signed mediums. A market population grid lists rare and seldom seen signatures.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year “An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?” Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.

Yankee Greats features 100 baseball cards of the greatest and most popular Yankees from the celebrated trading-card company Topps. Showcasing original cards for hall-of-fame players such as Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra, and current heroes like Derek Jeter, this unique package provides a fun and fresh approach to revisiting America’s favorite pastime with one of baseball’s most beloved teams. Since the Yankee’s humble beginnings in 1903 as the New York Highlanders to today’s star-studded team, the Bronx Bombers have won 27 World Championships—more titles than any other professional sports franchise in history. Yankee Greats will let Yankee and baseball fans alike revel in and reminisce over so many of the players that helped make baseball what it is today, and these legendary cards will bring back fond memories for both young and old collectors.

More than 150,000 major league baseball games were played in the 20th century. Here are ranked the 100 greatest, the very best (less than 1/10th of 1 percent) of the contests. They feature brilliant individual pitching performances, pitching duels, remarkable individual batting achievements, team offensive explosions, mind-numbing comebacks, multiple lead changes, team rivalries and heroics in final at-bats. The games are from the regular season, pennant races, playoffs, and the World Series. The inclusion of some games might be surprising, but all of them twanged or hammered the nerves of both spectators and participants.

This book is a celebration of some of the greatest player bats in the hobby, and some of the bats used to illustrate each two-page spread are extraordinary relics of our National Pastime. At the very least, these bats provide us with a greater insight about the players that used them, including their habits, traits and idiosyncrasies. At the other end of the spectrum, they provide us with a direct connection to the player, and transport us back in time to the place, and in many cases, the very moment that some of our fondest memories of baseball exist.

Full-color, detachable facsimile reproductions, both front and back, of 92 authentic baseball cards. Among the players are Hornsby, Young, McGraw, Stengel, Rickey, Gehrig, Williams, Mantle, Spahn, Robinson, Musial, Koufax, Clemente, and many more. There is no duplication of cards with Sugar's Classic Baseball Cards.

Profiles of 100 of the greatest baseball players of all time.

An illustrated history of baseball provides the selected top players' records and statistics, makes an evaluation of each player and his era, and includes short player biographies