Neyer and Epstein attempt, what many before have tried, to uncover the greatest baseball team of all time. Previous baseball scholars usually concentrated on one season while these authors chose to take a three year range of each team in the book (hence the title). Importantly they developed a system to measure teams of different eras. As many serious fans know, the style of play from early in this century is vastly different from today’s game.

Before I get further into my review, I must caution. This book is for the serious baseball fan. I doubt the casual fan will have much interest. And the non-fan should just forget it. Neyer and Epstein’s research and data are thorough, sometimes too thorough. I am a serious baseball fan. I surround myself with statistics and lore. My Total Baseball is well thumbed through, I catch games whenever I can and part of how I make my living is buying baseball books. But even for me sometimes, it was too much. It is the single biggest flaw in Baseball Dynasties.

The authors use a method to measure the standard deviation (SD) of each team. In very layman terms it measures the dispersion of a group of numbers. The higher the SD the more dispersed the numbers. Neyer and Epstein then use the SD in a statistic they call the Standard Deviation Score. In the book it is defined as “A measure of a team’s performance in a given season, relative to its league, uses its runs scored and runs allowed totals and how many SDs from the mean (or average) those totals were.” WHEW!

SD numbers do not fluctuate from era to era. (Don’t ask me to explain this. Just trust me. Neyer and Epstein make it clear in the book.) It’s this fact that is the cornerstone of their arguments for the teams involved. Oh sure they discuss other factors and the book even opens with a glossary of statistical terms to help you understand some of these other factors.

Luckily for me and other readers, this book is a lot more than a collection of data. Rob Neyer is an excellent writer and Epstein is pretty darn good himself. They alternate sections within chapters, discussing various facets of the teams. The book is full of fascinating anecdotes and the sidebars themselves are almost worth the price of admission.

The basic premise of the book is that using the SD method and other factors, the authors chose the fifteen greatest dynasties of all time. From each dynasty, they chose what they felt was the greatest team and then proceeded to examine and dissect.

As with any book of this sort, fans will have disagreements with the teams picked and omitted. (Like why the ‘86 Mets but none of the 90's Braves?) To the authors’ credit they spend an entire chapter discussing why some of the teams were left out. And for the most part their arguments are compelling. (Though I still think a Braves team that were in first place 8 of 9 times should have been included.)

And what would a book of great teams be without a chapter on the not-so-great. The only problem with this chapter is that it holds no big surprises. I won’t say who the worst “dynasty” of all time is, but “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry would be proud.

So who do they pick as the best of all time? That would be telling, but unlike the worst it isn’t who’d you expect. And they make an excellent point. They do a great job of convincing you that every team was worthy of being on their list. (My one real exception would have to be the ‘86 New York Mets. One year and two second place finishes a dynasty not make.)

Throw in the chapters on the best of the Negro Leagues and the 19th century, you have an excellent book for the serious baseball fan. Baseball Dynasties would be a welcome addition to the baseball fanatic’s bookshelf.
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If you read many books like this, you know Bill James is the class of the field. He knows his numbers, of course, but he's also a good writer, storyteller, and is quite good at seeing numbers not as an end, but as a tool in getting at the truth. Ron Neyer worked as a junior partner with James in the 1990s. (He's acknowledged as having been a substantial contributor to the work that went into James New Historical Abstract, the Everest of this sort of book.) Neyer learned well. Though he's a bit more flippant (one of the signs of the grind of his daily Internet writing), he shows here he can create a book that can share a shelf with Everest and not be thrown entirely into the shade. ( )