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What: “Total Baseball, Sixth Edition”

Editors: John Thorn, Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman and David Pietrusza

Publisher: Total Sports, $59.95.

After their decades of research discovered several statistical discrepancies with the official encyclopedia of major league baseball, John Thorn and Pete Palmer in 1989 published what they believed to be a more accurate account of baseball’s past.

In fact, they redefined the standard in sports encyclopedias, giving statistics what they believe to be their just place in history: mere supplements to the stories that are the sport’s past, not the stories themselves.

While the bulk of this latest edition--almost its final 2,000 pages--is devoted to statistics and a listing of every player, coach, manager and umpire to take part in major league baseball, its true beauty lies in its opening 650 pages: stories giving a deeper history than any baseball encyclopedia before.

Thorn’s opening essay, for instance, tells, among other things, why old parks were built in the middle of downtowns, the evolution of pay for play, baseball’s role as a model for society in its early stages, team histories and the evolution of baseball through the decades beginning with the ‘50s.

It also details every ballpark ever used for major league baseball and describes players the authors consider the best 400 of all time.

But the stories are what separate this book from others. Thorn gives his account of who is the true father of baseball. Another piece recounts Casey Stengel’s first year as the manager of the Yankees in 1949. And there are essays devoted to the development of several other leagues, including the Negro, minor and international leagues.

Of course, if you want to know the batting average or earned-run average of every person who played in the majors through last season, there are more than 1,000 pages of that too.

Thorn and Palmer published their original encyclopedia in 1989. And in 1995, major league baseball thought so highly of it, it’s now the league’s official encyclopedia.