Error found in T206 Book by Tom & Ellen Zappala
 

I have gotten in the habit of reading up on players right before or right after I purchase a card of them. I recently picked up a Jesse Tannehill card and found myself also checking out his brother, Lee.

One of my pet peeves is finding errors in Baseball books.

The Zappala T206 book claims that Lee Tannehill is the 'only shortstop in MLB history to convert 2 unassisted triple plays in the same game.'

Well, no one has ever done that.

There have been only 15 unassisted triple plays in the Majors and Lee Tannehill did not accomplish any of them.

Even worse, they quote this erroneous 'fact' on the back cover of their book.

Does anyone know any different? I am willing to do free editing and free research, citing all sources if anyone ever wants to produce a truly factual Baseball book.

You found one error in the book and you want to toss it aside? I love that book and think it is a classic.

Maybe it is the one error to be found, but maybe it's just the first I'll discover. No - I won't toss it aside...it's just that Baseball is a sport that lives by it's facts and statistics and I think it is important for anyone to be completely accurate when quoting said facts and statistics.

I agree....it is a good book, though it has virtually no competition in the specific focus on T206 cards. I have enjoyed reading it...and will continue to do so, just as I will continue to point out errors and offer my dedicated services whenever I discover them.

Ok, I'm on it...

Well, let's not so quickly dismiss this as an error on the part of the Zappalas.

According to the book Addie Joss on Baseball: Collected Newspaper Columns and World Series Reports, p305 footnote

4."On August 4, 1911, Lee Tannehill of the Chisox would become the only shortstop to execute two unassisted triple plays in a game. He's featured at third base, in Addie's following story (and Bill Bradley, in the present article, is flip-flopped between third base and short).

I will keep digging after dinner.

LOL, errors are also a part of baseball. Sometimes they remain undetected for a long time. The book is fine. If I get shot at for making just one mistake in my work, I think I'll be OK.

I agree, but still - when you are creating a print publication, you've got to check all the facts, especially if your assertion is printed on the cover. I see nothing wrong with Raymond getting excited about discovering this, but it's not that big of a deal, and it might end up that they are not completely wrong, although I have no idea what that would mean.

"errors are also a part of baseball" - nice. Sometimes a correction involves adding an error, as in Felix getting one so that his ERA could drop and win him the title. Uh oh, would this be 'opening a can of worms'?

The '14 Cracker Jack book...
 

has a problem in the Index. Frank is listed as John "Home Run" Baker. Page 14 has it correct.

I think the biggest error they made in that book was using reprints instead of authentic T206s. I'm just saying.

While it seems hard to believe, Tannehill is the only shortstop to complete two unassisted DOUBLE plays in one game.

Well, that explains the confusion.

COMPLETELY agree with T3s. It's almost a travesty that reprints were used throughout the book...

Curiously and though it did not involve a double play, this was the same game where Germany Schaeffer famously stole first base, having previously just stolen second.

That decision just boggles the mind.

While reading a spy novel that was more than a few years old I encountered a paragraph describing a room that contained some sort of hidden weapons cache. The room was 10 feet by 10 feet with a 10 foot ceiling. Later in the same paragraph the author referred to the room as having 100 cubic feet of space (not 1000 cubic feet or 10*10*10).

I notified the author via his website and got a very kind response, thanking me and admitting that he was not aware of the error and that I was the first one to bring it to his attention. This was at least 5 five years after publication of the book.

I seriously doubt that there are very few "erratum" free books published.
We just whomans after awl.

Right on, Craig! I've seen other forum members make the same comment, and I couldn't agree more. Don't get me wrong, I still love the book. But I don't understand why reprints were used. I'd have been happy with them using 5s and 6s.

The T206 Players book and the Cracker Jack Collection book serve as my coffee table books. They're beautiful, and I can't stop picking them up. But, if they did a second printing run of the book, only with real cards, I'd buy it in a second.

Agreed, I would love a second version with real cards. I'd buy it in a second.