Below is an e-mail I received today from the editor at the SPORTING NEWS about the defunct publication "The Scouting Notebook" that many of us had purchased and utilized for player scouting report information. He states the decision to not publish it was soley made by STATS, Inc. He does include a contact mail address for an individual at STATS, Inc. to voice your concern about STATS not continuaing to publish this excellent baseball player book, if anyone should so desire.

Stephen,

Thank you for your note about our redesigned Baseball Register.

We were a partner with Stats Inc. for three years in publishing the Major League Scouting Handbook. The book was a combination of Stats Inc.'s content and our publishing and distribution system. The editors listed on the first page of the 2005 version are all employees of Stats Inc. Our partnership with Stats Inc. was dissolved this year and so the decision or publish (or not publish) the Scouting Notebook was solely Stats Inc.'s. I agree it was a useful resource for passionate baseball fans. I can only assume it was not published this year because Stats Inc. does not believe it is a viable commercial product.

On the other hand, our Baseball Register has been a staple of fans' resource materials since 1940. In looking at the Register and asking ourselves -- as we do every year -- how the book could be better, we decided to incorporate short scouting reports with the appropriate analytical statistics on each player. I think this makes what has always been a good book a terrific book. I am confident we'll hear the same assessment from the vast majority of our long-time customers and from new customers, as well.

If you would like to share your feelings about the Scouting Notebook with the people at Stats Inc., you can write to Tony Nistler, Stats Inc., 8130 Leigh Avenue, Morton Grove, Illinois 60053.

The cover on our website is the real cover. The ones on the other websites were early mock-ups and we have asked that they be replaced. The correct page count is 744.

Kindest regards,
John Rawlings
Editor