Book Question: Who's Who

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Posted By: Jason L

Was wondering if I could tap the Board's infinite knowledge regarding older baseball books...

There looks to have been a series of books (annuals?) that were published with the title "Who's Who in Baseball"

When were these books published?
What is a representative sample of the contents? Is there a pic and a bio on every player? just the starters?
any other interesting content?

Any info appreciated!!!
Jason L

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Barry's post is more accurate than mine. I'll edit this out.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Which began with a one-shot in 1912 and has been printed each year since 1916

Rich

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Posted By: barrysloate

There are so many books published with the title "Who's Who" that it can get confusing. The most popular is the 1933 Speed Johnson volume.

But there was also a yearly series published by John Carmichael titled "Who's Who in Major League Baseball." That annual lasted from 1938 to 1955. They are found frequently and I am guessing that is the one you reference.

And there is a current "Who's Who" that is up to its 94th edition this year. It's the same idea as the others, offering career statistics for every active major league player.

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Posted By: Jason L

I am not sure which one I am referring to, but if it helps, the clue I got was from an Ebay listing I saw today for a few pages from a Who's Who in Baseball. The listings picture has a page view of the Pirates team 1937 or 1938, I forget which...(one of the pics is Lee Handley, of course, the reason for my search interest).
If you get time and can take a peek at that, and let me knwowhich book series that is from, and the author...I would appreciate it. If each one has a picture and a bio, stats, or write-up on the players, I might pursue the books from the years he played...but I'm not sure of the years or contents of these books.

Thanks again, Barry, everyone.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hi Jason- I just found it and that seller only has a few pages from the book. Now keep in mind Carmichael's 1938 edition would be a review of the 1937 season, so that is probably what he has. I don't know the series well enough to recognize those loose pages. Let me look in my Grobani and see if anything else pops up.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Okay- after Speed Johnson published his 1933 volume, he continued with three softcover volumes from 1935-37. Carmichael took over the book in 1938. So it could be one of those.

There about fifteen different Who's Who listed in the Grobani index. It is confusing and we can only guess where those loose pages originate.