Red Sox by the Numbers, By: Bill Nowlin and Matthew Silverman

If baseball is a game of numbers, this book intends to tell us all

about them. This is a Red Sox history, in numerical order. It progresses through the different uniform numbers worn by the different Red Sox players over the years, and gives a quick biography of some of the key players. If you’ve ever wondered just how many players have worn number 29 for the Sox, and what their stories were, this is the book you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, this is another book that wasn’t written for me. When you’re trying to condense 100 years of history into 300 pages, you can’t go into much detail. So, the stories of the players who wore the different numbers were very brief. This would be a better book for a novice Red Sox fan. It’s a creative way to get a lot of information about the team organized. There were, however, several side stories that I found interesting. There were many discussions with clubhouse personnel discussing how numbers were assigned and selected. Unfortunately, these snippets were too rare. While I can imagine any number of people who would enjoy reading this book, I was not one of them.

Rating: 2 bases