Total Baseball editions

The first edition of Total Baseball (TB1) was published in 1989 and the seventh in 2001. Along the way, TB became the official encyclopedia of major league baseball and the de facto standard desktop reference. (At 2500 8x11" pages, it is a desktop, not a laptop.)

This article illustrates changes between editions. I have considered doing something like this since 1994, then for TB3 (my edition) and TB1. Soon after the release of TB7 in Winter 2001, email exchanges with Mark Wernick and Andrew Clarke prompted me to begin.

  • tables of Contents ( TB3 and TB6 ) utter havoc
  • statistical lines in the Registers ( Players and Starting Pitchers ) practically complete

    The guide to contents would be a guide to the scope of each edition. The "utter havoc" does include a plain text version of the 6th edition table of "Contents" with marks in the left margin to indicate which articles are represented in the 3d edition. (I do have the table of contents across editions, but time expired before I used it.)
    The guide to stat lines now covers changes in the Player Register and (Starting) Pitcher Register, TB1 to TB7 (missing TB2).

    Call for stat lines, Player and Pitcher Registers, TB2.
    Andrew Clarke contributed header lines and stat lines for TB4 and TB7, with notes describing the differences from TB3 and TB6, in the style that I have adopted. That is, he provided content "ready to go" (plain text, which is all but bold and color) by email. I solicit similar contributions covering TB2, with notes that identify what is different from TB1 or TB3. I will provide the TB1 and TB3 headerlines and stat lines by email, if that format will make it easier to fit the template. It is probably easier for you to copy those lines from the web with a mouse. Please compose each line with fixed-width font, formatted with the [SPACE] character.

    Call for other contributions.
    Otherwise, I solicit comments, especially examples. How should the Contents be presented? Which are the most important stat lines outside the Player and Pitcher Registers? (Annual Leagues? Relief Pitchers? Managers?) Do you see a simple way to improve the presentation of stat lines?


    2001-04-14
    Last modified: 2001-04-24
    Paul Wendt
    © Paul Wendt, 2001