A book for me: Bill James the master sabrematician collects together some of his best writings without all the confusing statistical numbers. He really is an excellent and thoughtful writer musing on the game of baseball and many tangents such as the value of small cities like Kansas City. I particularly like his personal history of major league baseball in Kansas City right up to the Royals championship in 1985. It was a lot of fun reading about players and teams in the 70’s and 80’s and reliving some names of the time, and learning a lot I never really paid attention to since I was focused on the Mets if I paid attention to anything in baseball at the time. The man has some great original ideas, and I really respect them and kind of idealistically that more of his ilk could have some influence on the course of professional baseball. I really liked his idea of breaking up the farm system and allowing hundred of teams to compete to the level their cities will support in real games, playing for real championships. If only.

“If taken literally, everything in life is an acquired taste with the exception of a few basic staples like salt, sugar, sex and slapstick comedy, which we all share an enjoyment of…” (p. 38) He then goes on to compare the Houston Astros to jazz music.

“Of course, Strawberry and Gooden are always getting into some trouble, while Whitey and Mickey were choir boys. I’d like to think that in thirty years we will look back on this time remember them fondly, warts and all but with the warts not put under a magnifying glass and blown up as big as a house. I would hope that Dwight and Darryl would grow old and respectable and write books full of wild stories about the things that happened to them when they were young rogues and the world by the tail. Keith Hernandez will play Phil Rizzuto (the classy veteran, looking on with a bemused expression). Yogi appears to be as yet uncast, but we’re looking carefully at Mookie.” -1988 (p. 114)

“The Astros’ second baseman, using the term loosely, is Art Howe. Last year Howe hit extremely well, and pivoted on the double play as well as Bobby Doerr. Doerr was one of the greatest pivot men ever, but is now sixty-one years old, and he gave up the game some years ago, when he began to pivot like Art Howe…” 1979 (p. 125)

“Bad sabermetrics attempts to end the discussion by saying that I have studied the issue and this is the answer. Good sabermetrics attempts to contribute to the discussion in such a way as to enable it to move forward on a ground of shared understanding.” (p. 398) ( )