SABR Digital Library: Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games
Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games
Edited by Bill Nowlin
Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers
Publication Date: March 31, 2021
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-9701-5946-2, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5947-9, $29.95
8.5″ x 11″, 251 pages
What are Major League Baseball’s greatest comeback games? This SABR Digital Library book set out to collect the stories of those games, but rather than throw together an anecdotally-determined collection of games, SABR decided to see if there was an objective measure, a way to determine which was the greatest comeback game of all time, and to rank the games. Retrosheet’s Tom Ruane created a master list of 630 games and ranked them mathematically in terms of how unlikely the win was, and therefore how great the comeback had been. The games in this volume are presented in rank order, from number 1 through 64.
We also added the greatest postseason comeback games. These seven contests are presented in a separate section devoted to postseason games. And to make sure that every current team in MLB was represented in this volume, we treated the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants as different from the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, and added the greatest comeback by the Colorado Rockies, Texas Rangers, and several other teams.
In the end, every major-league team is represented in Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games, but the Phillies lead the list with six comeback wins in the top 64. Tied for second for most comebacks are four American League teams: the Red Sox, Indians, Tigers, and Yankees.
This book was a team effort by 60 members of the Society for American Baseball Research, who researched and wrote about all 80 games presented herein.
SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!
- E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, Kindle/MOBI and EPUB formats.
- Paperback: Get a 50% discount on the Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games paperback edition from the SABR Store ($17.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 4-6 weeks.)
Buy the book
- E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games for $9.99 from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, Kindle/MOBI and EPUB formats.
- Paperback: Get the paperback edition of Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games from the SABR Store ($34.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 4-6 weeks.)
Below: Find memorable game stories from Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games
Game Recaps
Contributors: Gary Belleville, Charlie Bevis, Nathan Bierma, David Black, Stephen D. Boren, Thomas J. Brown Jr., Dr. John J. Burbridge Jr., Frederick C. Bush, JP Caillault, Ralph Caola, Ken Carrano, Alan Cohen, Rory Costello, Richard Cuicchi, Rich D’Ambrosio, Scott Ferkovich, James Forr, Brian Frank, Adrian Fung, Gregory Funk, Gordon J. Gattie, Nate Gilman, Steven Glassman, Irv Goldfarb, William Grmek, Vince Guerrieri, Michael Hanks, Paul Hofmann, Mike Huber, Ronnie Joyner, Russ Lake, Kevin Larkin, Bob LeMoine, Len Levin, Justin Mattingly, Madison McEntire, Bill Nowlin, Tony S. Oliver, Dennis Pajot, Laura H. Peebles, Matthew Perry, Alan Raylesberg, Carl Riechers, Richard Riis, Tom Ruane, Tom Schott, Peter Seidel, Andrew Sharp, Mark S. Sternman, Andrew Stockmann, Jim Sweetman, Bruce Thompson, Michael Trzinski, Joseph Wancho, Brian Williams, Jim Wohlenhaus, Gregory H. Wolf, Allan Wood, and Jack Zerby.