The Society for American Baseball Research is making the Emerald Guide to Baseball, 2009, by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette, available as a free dowload from the SABR website.  It requires an email registration.

From SABR:

"SABR is pleased to help baseball fans cut expenses this season by publishing and giving away the The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009. Yes, we said "giving away." The guide, which fills the hole in the baseball record left by the 2006 demise of The Sporting News Baseball Guide, contains detailed statistics for every player at every level of the professional game, team histories, and up-to-date team contact information and schedules.

Baseball fans anywhere in the world—both SABR members and non-members—can download the PDF version of the book free of charge from the SABR website at www.sabr.org.

Edited by acclaimed baseball historians Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, The Emerald Guide distills the 2008 season down to 586 fact-filled pages that contain the pitching, fielding, and hitting statistics for each player active in the major and minor leagues in 2008. As with the classic Sporting News Guides, the Emerald Guide also features team-by-team daily results, a directory of important contacts, a synopsis of the just-completed season, and much more. A bound version is available via print on demand at Lulu.com for $23.95. Every page in the bound edition is in the PDF.

Why are we doing this? Well, part of SABR's mission is to disseminate the history and record of baseball, and that's exactly what we're doing. If you find this book valuable, please consider joining SABR if you aren't already a member. And feel free to send friends and family to www.sabr.org so they can get their free PDF of The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009. "