Pax Arcana: Nerding out on baseball at the Museum of Science

Pax Arcana and the luminous and courageous Mrs. Pax Arcana beat a path down to the Boston Museum of Science last night to hear Bill James, the grand poobah of baseball nerds, and his protege Rob Neyer hold forth on a variety of baseball related topics.

...The problem for James is how to measure the impact of a player’s personality on the team’s wins and losses. He has no idea how to go about doing that, but thinks it will have to involve practices from other scientific disciplines, such as organizational psychology. He sharply disputes the idea that off-field behavior doesn’t matter.

“There are some people who seem to think the things that happen off the field have no effect on teams whatsoever. That strikes me as idiotic,” he says.

About Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, James hews to his numbers-based approach and refrains from diving into the murky waters of ethics and morality. “If you choose to feel cheated, I can’t argue with that,” he tells an audience member. “I choose to feel a different way.”

Thanks, Rob...and Happy Birthday! (Doh!...I forgot to use the “You’re with me, flannel” line)