Sweet Seasons: Baseball's Top Teams Since 1920

Rather than utilize the detailed, subjective data he has compiled in this book's individual chapters to rank the top 25 champion baseball teams from 1920 to the present day, Siner chooses to rate teams by their regular-season winning percentages, thus adding nothing new to an old debate. The top 10 teams include five New York Yankee squads ('27, '39, '32, '61, '36), the 1929 Philadelphia A's, 1942 St. Louis Cardinals, 1986 New York Mets, 1975 Cincinnati Reds and 1970 Baltimore Orioles. Each chapter averages five pages and describes how the teams developed into championship material: by trades, cash and, in the pioneering case of the 1942 St. Louis Cardinals, through a farm system. In addition to playoffs and World Series, the teams' regular seasons are also recapped month by month, discussing turning points or problems (the 1939 Yankees overcoming the shock of Lou Gehrig's sudden retirement; 1975 Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson moving Pete Rose to third and playing George Foster in left field to stabilize the ""Big Red Machine''). Siner is sports editor of Newspaper Enterprise Association/United Feature Syndicate. Photos not seen by PW. (March)