A must-have for any good baseball library is "The 100 Greatest Minor League Baseball Teams of the 20th Century” ($22, Outskirts Press) by Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright.
Three Oklahoma teams are in the Top 100. The 1922 Enid Harvesters are 20th, the 1924 Okmulgee Drillers are 49th, and the 1932 Tulsa Drillers are ranked 83rd among all minor league ballclubs in the past century.
The '22 Enid team forged the greatest won-lost record (104-27) in minor league baseball history. The Harvesters won their first 12 games and were 55-11 in the second half of the Western Association season.
Two years later, the '24 Okmulgee team's record was nearly as gaudy, at 110-48 in the Western Association. The Drillers' .328 batting average was 20 points more than any other team in the league.
The '32 Tulsa team played in new Fairgrounds Park, after the city had gone without pro baseball for two years. The Drillers' 98-48 record produced the highest winning percentage (.671) in Western League history.
Weiss and Wright have hit several home runs in their research for the Top 100. There are statistics galore and a synopsis of the players who went from these teams to the major leagues.
There also is something that's missing from too many similar books: a handy index.
Weiss and Wright, noted baseball historians, originally compiled their Top 100 for Minor League Baseball's 100th anniversary in 2001. Now the rankings are in book form and worthy of any baseball library.
— Bob Hersom
