Grand Canyon Zion & Bryce (Wildlife Watcher's Guide)

Book Description

Guaranteed to spark debate among baseball diehards with its controversial pick for #1

"Elliott Kalb's work is beyond excellent. He thinks in story lines and uses numbers to make compelling and often original points."--Bob Costas

In the world of major-league sports, Elliott Kalb, a.k.a "Mr. Stats," is the Sultan of Stats, the Tsar of Trivia, and the Final Word in armchair-athlete disputes. Now, hot on the heels of his controversial bestseller Who's Better, Who's Best in Basketball? comes a book that is guaranteed to raise both hackles and cheers from baseball fans from coast to coast. More than a book of lists, Who's Better, Who's Best in Baseball?:

Interweaves numbers, facts, and anecdotes to offer a grand perspective on the entire history of the sport and its 100 all-time greatest of the greats--including players from the Negro Leagues
Features interviews with MLB experts, players, and coaches, including Bob Costas, Bud Selig, Vin Scully, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Johnny Bench, and others
Argues the popular debate--what means more, modern training and modern medicine, overall athletics, popularity, or genetics?

Customer Reviews:

One Man's Fancy.......2006-03-22

This book is interesting because it does what it sets out to do--start a dialogue about the subjects. However, the book is filled with errors, and the opinions are those of just one person, although a number of baseball people's opinions are cited. Who is "better" or "best" ultimately becomes subjective, of course. Kalb seems to be an apologist for Bobby Bonds, possibly because the book was published before any truly "smoking gun" was pointed at Bonds, or possiblty just to incite controversy. But to push for Binds in what seems like nearly entry is just too much. And to give great weight to MVP or performance in World Series is absurd (check, for example, Ted Wiliams). There is also a huge contradiction. Kalb suggests that Oh would have performed about the same in the US as in Japan, but he denies that same potential to early players and to those in the Negro leagues. If Oh faced less potent pitchers, so did the others. Also, Kalb does not account for the expansion of major league baseball in any really substantial way, except to assume that, because of expansion, all the weak players are gone. One could argue exactly the opposite. (For example, how strong would teams be if both major leagues still had only eight teams to field the top players? Isn't that what used to happen?) Kalb does point out that the players today are bigger, stronger, and better trained (he does not make much of better equipment, though), and then he ruins that by seeming to condone steroids and the like (just Bonds making himself the best he could be) without factoring in how someone like Ruth or Musial or Mays or Aaron might have performed on steroids.

Great read.......2006-01-11

This is a book that will appeal to all baseball fans and stat junkies. My own personal opinions on that overall list aside (I am a diehard Giants fan, but I don't think Barry Bonds is that best overall player). The first review here basically states everything one needs to know before buying this book. However, I have a problem with some people saying that certain facts Kalb states in the book as false. The record for most runs scored in a sub-.280 season by Schmidt IS the record. Records in baseball now are generally called as such based on every game played post 1901, when the two league system was invented, thus beginning the sports' modern era. The rules were completely different before this time, and even after, certain things were not changed until a few years later. Hell, when Nap Lajoie set the record for average in a season, he did so in a year that foul balls were not considered strikes, and this was after 1901. Thus, Schmidt holds the modern day record, which, except in a few instances (Cy Young, Cap Anson, to name a couple), is what players today are judged by.

When we are comparing players in a sport that has such a rich and diverse history as baseball, one must take into account that era in which the players played and rate them based on how they compared to their peers. How many homeruns would Aaron have hit had he played in the launching pad in Atlanta for a larger portion of his career? Would Ruth have hit 700 homeruns playing in a less condusive park to his particular talents? How would Ted Williams final career numbers have looked had he not lost five years in his prime fighting in TWO different wars, and would he finally, without argument, be considered the greatest hitter who ever lived? How about Johnny Mize and Hank Greenberg; would their numbers be even more impressive considering they also lost three-four prime years in a war? And honestly, why is Alex Rodriguez ranked so high and Manny Ramirez so low? Ramirez has just slightly better career stats in most every offensive category in fewer career at-bats. Defensive skills aside, does that really rank Ramirez, that man who will set the career mark for RBI, 60 spots lower than A-Rod?

One gripe I have is that the list, even the final twenty-five spots he summarizes at the very end to make up the best hundred, he only includes one NPO player, Sadaharu Oh, deservedly so, but what aboout Shigeo Nagashima? I can name at least eight other Japanese leaguers who deserve to be on this list.

READ THIS BOOK and make your own arguments.

Mr. Numbers is far too often Mr. Fan.......2005-11-01

Now don't get me wrong. This book is about as entertaining as they come for a baseball fan. The way that Kalb uses numbers to rate players in different leagues and eras is quite an undertaking. Sometimes though his arguments become transparent. I have found several examples throughout the book where he will just stop trying to cite numbers and examples and seems to be overtly subjective in his opinion. My favorite example is when comparing Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds. He argues that in Ruth's time he faced tired starters who yielded many of Ruth's HR's. And that Bonds was superior because he faced modern relief pitching and not tired washed up starters. He however also eludes to (in the same comparission mind you) thin pitching staffs and lauching pad stadiums in modern times. Not discounting Barry for that at all. If he would give me the numbers I would conclude that Barry is the better hitter. However, when he tries to put his numbers in context very often he compares what he wants to compare to get the result that he has already predetermined. There are a few mistakes as previous reviewers have pointed out. But as this review is proof to the book sparks debate. I just have a problem with the way that the analysis is done. Great book though.

Great Book, Very Informative and Entertaining.......2005-08-21

This is a great book for any baseball fan. What Kalb writes about current players Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, and Pedro Martinez is timely and places them in proper historical perspective. I bought this book for three teenaged fans, and they all loved it, too. Be prepared when the debates start about which players are best.

"Mr. Stats" needs to check his facts.......2005-08-16

This is the first Elliott Kalb book I've read and I'm extremely disappointed with the numerous errors that pepper this book throughout. Younger readers who are trying to learn something about the greats of the game will be inundated with incorrect or contradicting information and readers who consider themselves somewhat educated about baseball history will soon become annoyed at the mistakes, which seem to adorn every single page. Kalb states in one player's comments that the first All-Star game took place in 1934 (incorrect), then in another player's comments writes that the first All-Star game was played in 1933 (correct). Confusing, no? This is one of many examples that I found.

It appeared that some errors were the result of just plain laziness, while others came from poor research. In the Mike Schmidt chapter, Kalb writes: "In 1977, he (Schmidt) scored 114 runs on his .274 batting average. That's the record for most runs scored on a sub-.280 average in baseball history." Not only is that NOT the record, it's not even close. The record is held by Hub Collins, who scored 148 runs while hitting .278 in 1890. In fact, there have been 73 times in baseball history that a batter scored at least 114 runs while hitting below .280. And if you ignore the 19th century and only consider modern-day (1900-present) players, Red Rolfe holds the record with 143 runs scored on a .276 average in 1937. The feat has been accomplished 36 times since 1900 and Schmidt is tied for 32nd (and last) place. This may be nitpicking, but it's errors like this that make me not take this book seriously.

My second point of contention is that Kalb rarely "sells" his opinions why he thinks one player is better than another. He states facts (sometimes even correctly), and compares the numbers and contributions of each man, then leaves most of the job to the reader to decide who was better. But I bought the book hoping that "Mr. Stats" could convince me why one player should be considered better than another or perhaps change my mind about some of my own opinions. Instead he came on with all the conviction of a wet noodle.

I'm not going to bash Kalb for his rankings because, frankly, they're based on his opinions and he's entitled to them. Just because I may disagree doesn't make him wrong and me right. But his infatuation with Barry Bonds and insistance on bringing up his name every chance he could, became overbearing at times. We get it, Mr. Kalb. You think Barry Bonds is the greatest player of all time. It's bad enough that I had to read about it on the first page, let alone be constantly reminded of it on every other page.

As you can tell by now, I wasn't impressed with the book at all and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It wasn't particularly well written and there are too many errors and inaccuracies to receive my endorsement.

Book Description

This handy, convenient volume is the ideal dictionary for beginning students and travelers. Featuring the essential vocabulary appropriate to beginning and lower intermediate students, the Pocket Tagalog Dictionary covers all the words needed for the everyday situations encountered by travelers.

Customer Reviews:

Seems pretty simplistic.......2005-10-16

I bought this dictionary as a gift, choosing this one because of it's "pocket" size feature and being quite cheap.

After receiving it, I was very surprised at how simplistic this book is, and is quite big for being "pocket size". I have a different brand of pocket dictionary of another foreign language that is quite small and use very religiously. This Tagalog one pales in comparison to what I used and what I was expecting.

There are no pronuciation explanations, as I guess they assume you know how to pronounce the words already. But then again, reading Tagalog is pretty straightfoward, as opposed to trying to read, say, Chinese or Russian, where the characters are totally different. But you wouldn't even know where to accent the syllables either...

A total for 88 pages with 44 pages devoted to each Tagalog - English, and English - Tagalog. I guess you get what you pay for. And I'm not paying this much for this book. I'm returning this one!

Periplus Pocket Filipino Dictionary (Periplus Pocket Dictionary)

Average customer rating:

Periplus Pocket Filipino Dictionary (Periplus Pocket Dictionary)

Manufacturer: Charles E. Tuttle Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

English (All) | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0794600468

Pocket dictionary, English-Tagalog vocabulary

Average customer rating:

Pocket dictionary, English-Tagalog vocabulary
Felix Macapinlac Manalili
Manufacturer: Printed by Pressman Printers and Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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General | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007JLD1E

Pocket dictionary, English-Tagalog-Visayan (Cebuano-Ilongo) vocabulary

Average customer rating:

Pocket dictionary, English-Tagalog-Visayan (Cebuano-Ilongo) vocabulary
Pablo Jacobo Enriquez
Manufacturer: Philippine Book Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0007KEZMC

Pocket dictionary: English-Tagalog Ilocano vocabulary

Average customer rating:

Pocket dictionary: English-Tagalog Ilocano vocabulary
Pablo Jacobo Enriquez
Manufacturer: Philippine Book Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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General | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007J6KXK

Average customer rating:

Pocket Dictionary: English-Tagalog Ilocano Vocabulary.
M. Jacobo and J. Ben Quimba. Enriquez
Manufacturer: Philippine Book Company.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Pocket dictionary: English-Tagalog; Tagalog-English vocabulary

Average customer rating:

Pocket dictionary: English-Tagalog; Tagalog-English vocabulary
M. Jacobo Enríquez
Manufacturer: Philippine Book Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

English (All) | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007JU8XS

English Tagalog Tagalog English Vocabulary/Pilipino Dictionary, Pocket

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English Tagalog Tagalog English Vocabulary/Pilipino Dictionary, Pocket
M. Jacobo Enriquez
Manufacturer: Colton Book Imports
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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General | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 9716860242

Combined English-Tagalog Ilocano Vocabulary Pocket Dictionary

Average customer rating:

Combined English-Tagalog Ilocano Vocabulary Pocket Dictionary

Manufacturer: Felix M. Manalili
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

English-Tagalog Ilocano Vocabulary Pocket Dictionary

Average customer rating:

English-Tagalog Ilocano Vocabulary Pocket Dictionary
M. Jacobo (J. Ben Quimba) Enrigquez
Manufacturer: Philippine Book Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VW1XC6

Book Description

In the tradition of celebrated collections The Art of Sin City and The Art of Hellboy, Dark Horse is proud to showcase the work of multi award-winning artist Stan Sakai in The Art of Usagi Yojimbo. Timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the creation of Sakai's signature character, Usagi Yojimbo, this stunning hardcover will be printed on high-quality paper stock and will feature scores of never-before-seen pieces, a long out-of-print 12-page primer illustrating how Stan creates each of his Usagi stories, 48 full-color pages of Stan's beautifully painted artwork, and more. Additionally, some of the biggest names in comics pay tribute to their favorite rabbit ronin in a fantastic gallery section, with pinups by Frank Miller, Sergio Aragones, Jeff Smith, and Matt Wagner, among others! An overdue addition to the bookshelves of any avid Usagi fan or admirer of the comics medium, The Art of Usagi Yojimbo is destined to become a treasured piece in many collections.

Customer Reviews:

Worth picking up!.......2006-03-25

If you like the series, this art book is really worth buying!

The printing quality is very high. It has a hard cover with a mix of a matte and glossy finish which looks very classy. It has really high quality paper, and vellum inserts in between chapters. It also has a lot of color pages, including some color comic chapters in watercolor. Very nice!

The book also has a lot of unique content, including a chapter on how Stan makes each chapter (told in comic form!) There are some interesting sketches and a section showing how Stan comes up with those nice introductory illustrations. It also has jaw-droppingly nice con drawings that you can't really see in other places.

If you're a fan of Stan's work and thinking of picking this up, it's worth the price!

Another winner from an Eisner winner!.......2006-02-03

Stan Sakai's fantastic Usagi Yojimbo is probably one of the best character in modern comics today. With this 20th anniversary book, old fans and new readers alike get the best of Usagi as well as an insightful history in the creation and mastery behind such a well-loved character. Looks at players in the world of Usagi, the use of Japanese mythos and culture from the days of the first shoganate, and the art style of Stan himself is just a brief sampling of what you'll find in this collection. It is more than well worth the money for anyone with even a passing interest in Japan, comics, and, of course, Miyamoto Usagi.

Stan Sakai's Best!.......2005-06-14

This is a great book. It has tons of covers and pages of fun filled stuff. Getting this book is like getting 3 FULL GRAPHIC NOVELS!!!! This is actually my first usagi Yojimbo book and I almost know EVERY CHARACHTER!!!

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