The three "Baseball Books" James published in the early 1990s were aimed at the fantasy baseball market, though they also carried on the non-stats essays that had been a highlight of James's earlier series of Baseball Abstracts. This was the first in the series. For those only familiar with James through his Historical Abstracts, his earlier writings might surprise you. Later James is more self-consciously measured and judicious. Here he more often just lets his judgments fly, which means there are contradictions, resentfulness, joy, colorfully expressed disdain . . . The season-to-season writing has an immediacy and an imperfection you might not be used to. On the historical side, there's the beginnings of what would have been an extremely interesting biographical encyclopedia of baseball. ( )