And from ACTA SPORTS...

"Just a reminder to catch Bill James on The Colbert Report tonight on Comedy Central at 11pm eastern time. He will be discussing his new book Popular Crime..."

At a Level 1 prison, for example, you get a lawyer, a Bible, and around-the-clock supervision

[insert lawyer joke here]

So what's a replacement level serial killer?

Sounds like level 10 might be a better deal than freedom if you live in an expensive spot like the Bay area...

3-well, I'd suggest the late 80's, NYC-based, copycat "Zodiac" guy, whom some of my less decorum-mined drinking buddies referred to as the "Zodiac Wounder".

I wouldn't want to be that cat, if you know what I mean;)

So what's a replacement level serial killer?

Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

[6] Except for the chow, it'd be a decent gig. It's being done and it works well for the inmates. What's odd about at least that excerpt is the idea that there's not already a range from Supermax to monitoring. I teach wit some regularity at a prison outside Houston, and it's definitely an incentive system to arrange the academic and institutional credits to get transferred to the unit, a state facility that ranges from max to trustee camp.

to break down each piece of evidence, judge its accuracy, and grade it using a predetermined point scale, with a total of 100 points needed to convict.

GIGO

Borden’s final “score,” according to James, would be a mere 20—nowhere near enough to convict.

Then the system is pretty much garbage.

Then the system is pretty much garbage.

Sample size might be worth citing here. Also...


GIGO

Why don't people write in english anymore?

James should stick to baseball just like Shockley should have stuck to transistors

So what's a replacement level serial killer?

The problem is that replacement level serial killer would be greatly skewed if you included Russian/South American serial killers.
There are some seriously ###### up killers in those areas that would skew things so much that Ted Bundy would be considered replacement level, even though he'd really be a HOF serial killer in America.

Why don't people write in english anymore?

Lady Gigo -- she's a big star, you should have heard of her by now.

On the prison thing -- really, that's not far from the system we have. Various levels of security along with parole/probation and house arrest/bracelets and work release programs. Tons of prisoners work of course -- mostly to help fund the prison not for their own savings.

I didn't keep up but in the 70s/80s, prison design was all about creating small pods -- kinda like a dorm suite with a common area for a dozen or so cells. Big cell blocks are also a major security/riot hazard and part of the design was precisely to be able to cut off areas of the prison if they got unruly rather than having hundreds rioting.

And, really, a Favorite Toy for projecting 3,000 hits is one thing; a Favorite Toy to measure guilt/innocence? I do look forward to future jury deliberations though --
"Hey, he's only got a guilt score of 87, we can't convict."
"No way, man, Chone's got him at 105."
"Yeah, but you can't trust the defense attorney rating system, fangraphs has him at 75."
"Yeah, well, I hear the defendant has hired Boras to negotiate the book rights."
"All in favor of guilty? Right, unanimous."

So what's a replacement level serial killer?

I read about one who attempted a home invasion and ended up getting killed by the husband and wife who lived there. The cops only found out he was a serial killer when they took DNA from his body, ran it, and found like three or four unsolved murders. Think his name was Warren something.

Anyway, he'd have to be pretty close to replacement level, right?

to break down each piece of evidence, judge its accuracy, and grade it using a predetermined point scale, with a total of 100 points needed to convict.

I've heard something like this before.

Why don't people write in english anymore?

QFT. Like seriously, WTF?

Andrei Chikatilo would skew the scale. Then there was Gille de Rais, Javed Iqbal Mughal and Ted Bundy, who all set the bar pretty high. Of course, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Francisco Macías Nguema, if they were on hell's baseball team, would give a new meaning to murderer's row.

yeah, the Colbert interview was kind of awkward.

But the Murderer scale has to take into account the local police's competence/integrity. That's how you make sure half of the top guys on the list aren't from Colombia or Russia. And a filter for people known for inflating their body counts (Richard Kuklinski/Henry Lee Lucas). I'm sure that those able to still commit crimes while under the public eye (Richard Ramirez) get extra SK+ points too

A line between people responsible for murders and people directly murdering is worth considering too.

So the Serial Killer/Murderer scale will have a lot of spree killers who did their work over a year or so before getting caught. So, they're like the major leaguer who doesn't make six years but has a few real good years in the process.

Richard Chase has a short career, but an incredibly high peak on the scale of grossness and stuff.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Francisco Macías Nguema

I think you have to make a distinction between people who, like, stab and bite and stuff, and others who use the levers of democracy to kill. Not, like, morally, but in a qualitative sense -- I think it's a different psychological phenomenon.

"I think you have to make a distinction between people who, like, stab and bite and stuff, and others who use the levers of democracy to kill. Not, like, morally, but in a qualitative sense -- I think it's a different psychological phenomenon."

Yeah. Mass murderers kill large amounts of people to impose their preferred vision of society. To the serial killer, the murder is the end in itself.

By "democracy", of course, I meant "bureaucracy". Oh, well. The internet.

If you kill a bunch of people at the same time, why aren't you called a "parallel killer"?

It seems like a violation of the established rules for nomenclature, y'know?

My copy just came in the mail yesterday. It ain't perfect, but it's a good read.

Like #23 says, it's a good read, but I certainly am not having the same eye-opening experience I had when I read my first Abstract or with the Historical Baseball Abstract (although maybe that's setting too high a standard). The Lizzie Borden numerical scale thing appeared to have been dashed off without that much consideration. Of course, I'm only about a quarter through, and it could improve, but so far my judgment would be while a good read, not one of his better efforts.

James is a very good writer, and seems like he'd be a lot of fun to chat with, but he's just a terrible, terrible interviewee. Despite Colbert being a pretty good interviewer, even.

Just wait till you see who James thinks killed JFK.

I'm sure that those able to still commit crimes while under the public eye (Richard Ramirez) get extra SK+ points too

But there's no such thing as clutch.

I just bought the book today. Haven't had a chance to read a whole lot of it yet, but at first perusings it's a terrific read. Please allow me to repeat the comment I put up on THT:

I had no idea that Bill James was a True Crime aficionado. I’m definitely not in his league for knowledge on the subject, but ever since reading “In Cold Blood” at the age of about 11 I’ve been very interested, and have read many, many books on crimes and criminals.

So finding out here that my favorite (okay, second favorite—Roger Angell will always be #1) baseball writer has turned his attention to this subject got my attention big time. I just went over to the local bookstore on my lunch hour, and bought a copy.

Haven’t had time to read much more than a few snippets yet, but I can already tell that, just like the old Abstracts, this one can be readily enjoyed just by reading random snippets. This is everything I’ve always loved about Bill James’s work: his passion for small facts and details, yet also connecting them into a larger flow, his willingness to put forth strong opinions (which whether I find them persuasive or not, always cause me to think and test my own opinions), and most of all his witty and elegant writing style.

I can already tell I’m going to love this book.

Just wait till you see who James thinks killed JFK.

I still think Aristotle Onassis (sp?) might have been behind both JFK's and RFK's murders. Given his crush on Jackie Kennedy and the fact only JFK and RFK stood in the way and his great wealth, it's not as absurd as it may sound.

James is a very good writer, and seems like he'd be a lot of fun to chat with, but he's just a terrible, terrible interviewee. Despite Colbert being a pretty good interviewer, even.

Favorite memory of the piece 60 mintues did on James was when they were doing some voiceover bit explaining James, instead of having him sit at a desk or use a computer or something, there were scenes of James walking here and there. Who needs to see James hoofing it? I get it, he's a biped, but I think the Red Sox hired him for other reasons.

I've been reading the book, almost finished, and I think it's great.

James' main point on the prison reform thing isn't the Level One to Level Ten thing - of course that's being done in bits in pieces here and there.

His point was in the sizes of the prisons. Get rid of this massive super-prisons, which you most violent prisoners run the show. Replace them with mini-prisons of no more than 24 people. I'll let you read the book, I don't want to butcher his explanation of why this would be good, but it absolutely would be, I agree with him there.

But he also admits that it isn't something that's necessarily realistic in the current environment and that it would take decades to implement.

I've been reading the book, almost finished, and I think it's great.

It is. If you're interested in the subject of "true crime," I'd have to call it a must-read. I don't agree with all of his opinions, but that isn't the point. It's the research, the ability to describe patterns in what most of us might see as chaos, and most of all the deft, easygoing writing that makes it so engaging.

Borden’s final “score,” according to James, would be a mere 20—nowhere near enough to convict.

Then the system is pretty much garbage.

Wow, what a convincing argument. You've sold me.

The system isn't really a system in terms of the points. He just goes through a couple of cases, and assigns point values to the different pieces of evidence. There is no 'system' - he freely admits every case is different.

He has me convinced that there is no way you could convict Lizzy Borden, for whatever that is worth. Whether or not she did it, the evidence simply isn't there to warrant a conviction. If you disagree, how about explaining why? How about reading the book and telling us where James misinterpreted something?

It's the research, the ability to describe patterns in what most of us might see as chaos.

Yeah, especially that Steve. I really hope he writes another one of these. I've enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

I really hope he writes another one of these.

Well, yeah, but the scale of this thing is just so vast that I'm not sure he's left space for himself to write another one of these. This book covers, or at least mentions in passing, I don't know how many notorious cases -- dozens and dozens, essentially every case that was a big splash in the news in the US in the 20th century, plus plenty of others from England and elsewhere in Europe, plus plenty of others from more distant history. The sheer volume is amazing.

Yeah you are probably right about another book. But it would be cool to read his thoughts on other crimes, not necessarily just the murders.

I just think it's cool when he talks about a case then rattles off 3 or 5 books he's read on the case. The wild thing is that he does this like 15 or 20 times (it seems like). I cannot imagine how many of these books he's read. So when he says things like 'that never happens', he has a lot of credibility, IMO.

I really like how he ties the crime story to the mood of society at the time when he does that.

And for what it's worth, his views on JFK seem pretty reasonable to me.

And for what it's worth, his views on JFK seem pretty reasonable to me.

They do. The scenario he suggests (or rather, the book he read suggests, and he finds persuasive) makes a lot of sense.

I'd love to get his take on the most recent JFK assassination book I've read, Brothers in Arms from 2008. He doesn't make mention of it in the book, so it's unclear whether he's read it. In any case, the Brothers in Arms scenario doesn't contradict the scenario James presents.

Great question and response from Bill's mailbag...

Aren't you worried that by analyzing crime so much, you are taking the fun out of it for crime traditionalists? shouldn't we leave popular crime analysis to the traditional experts and avoid spoiling the intrinsic fun of the field?
Asked by: robert
Answered: May 16, 2011


I'm still waiting for an interviewer to ask me, "What do you know about crime? Did you ever kill anybody?"

Not to rain on anyone's parade (I'm a great fan of Bill's) but see the comments at Amazon. A number are really down on the book, and are quite specific as to why. Still, I take the comments here, too, at face value, since they are by savvy guys.

BTW, does he indicate he's read Bugliosi's tome on the JFK assassination?

Well, yeah, but the scale of this thing is just so vast that I'm not sure he's left space for himself to write another one of these.

I got the sense that he's been working on this book pretty much his entire life, in that he's been reading these true-crime books for decades now. He mentions that he wrote the piece about the Alaskan serial killer fifteen years ago.

does he indicate he's read Bugliosi's tome on the JFK assassination?

Not specifically, though he indicates that he's read a whole lot of them. The two on which he specifically focuses his analysis are Case Closed by Gerald Posner, and Mortal Error by Howard Donahue and Bonar Menninger.

I got the sense that he's been working on this book pretty much his entire life, in that he's been reading these true-crime books for decades now.

True enough. But what makes a person like me just tip my hat is that I've been reading these true-crime books for decades now too, and it's now utterly obvious to me that I haven't begun to scratch the tip of the surface. James must recognized as an absolute master of this material.

I really hope he writes another one of these.

I talked to Bill a while back about my dealings with Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski (and sorta lived to tell about them!) and he said he wasn't in the book. He said he had a ton of extra stuff. So I guess we'll see how the book does.

I thought Case Closed quite convincing, and think most of the criticism of it through the years driven by the agenda-ridden mind.

I talked to Bill a while back about my dealings with Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski (and sorta lived to tell about them!) and he said he wasn't in the book.

That must have been a long time ago, because there's a sizable Kuklinski section in the book. No mention of stickball, though.

I just finished the book this afternoon. I know he mentioned Kuklinski somewhere in there, although I'm still swimming in all the names, so he may not have made more than a passing reference. He said something about throwing a lot of extra material up on the net.

I haven't been a crime buff since grade school, when come to think of it, I read an awful lot of morbid stuff I probably had no business with, but I thought the book stacked up well with much of his other work. He assimilates a ton of material in an easy way, sounding more like someone talking to you on an adjacent barstool than a Writer of Serious Prose, which has always been his strong suit. It's structured much like the Historical Abstract, with a basically chronological overview of crime in America interlarded with topical digressions. They're all integrated into the chapters, but a different publisher could easily have broken them out into boxes and sidebars as his baseball books do.

The thing is filled with unfinished notions that could be spun off into full-length works on their own, another James trademark. I've gotten a mite frustrated with that habit in his baseball writing of late, but since this a fresh topic for him, it didn't seem to matter as much. He does assume a good deal of familiarity with many of the cases he discusses, and some additional exposition in various places wouldn't have hurt. I get the sense that this was an editorial issue in that he pruned some sections without entirely spackling over the holes he'd made.

Not to rain on anyone's parade (I'm a great fan of Bill's) but see the comments at Amazon. A number are really down on the book, and are quite specific as to why.

I just read them now. There's entirely valid content in those criticisms. I don't find their overall thrust compelling, however, because (a) they seem to be holding this book against a standard of profundity that neither the current-day James nor anyone else could help to meet, and (b) perhaps this a repetition of my first point, but this book shouldn't be compared to previous Bill James books on baseball, but rather to previous books by any authors on the subject of True Crime -- against which this one, flaws included, leaps to the forefront of Best Ever.

The reviews on Amazon are nitpicky and generally they just don't get it.

Of course it's choppy, that how most of James' books are. That's what makes them great. You can pick them up anywhere and start reading. The book doesn't need a central thesis. It's a collection of essays.

He takes the crime story as the general backdrop, and uses it to tell you about something else. That's what he's been doing for the last 35 years. The Tigers team comment in the 1985 Abstract wasn't about the team. It was about teams that had great starts. The Blue Jays comment one year was used to discuss the best outfields ever.

The book is 475 or so pages as it is. He doesn't need to go into deep detail on every case. As he says in the book, you can get the details on the Internet.

EDIT: Jarrod that last comment wasn't directed at your comment, but at the reviews. Didn't mean to sound overly critical of the criticism. :-) Your comment actually sums it up pretty well.

It is. If you're interested in the subject of "true crime," I'd have to call it a must-read. I don't agree with all of his opinions, but that isn't the point. It's the research

It's the research? I thought that was the book's weakest part. If he's writing about a murder, it's because he read a book about the murder. In some cases 2 or 3 books on it. Much of this book read like twice told tales - cliff notes versoin. He repeatedly points out in the book he's no expert on the subject.

I liked the book and it was a good read, but it was nothing great. I gave a fuller opinion on the matter in the forums in post #28 here. (Note, as is the nature of anything in the forums, you have to be logged in to see it. Sorry lurkers).

The book is at its best when he goes into detail on a particular case - Cleveland Torso Murders, Sam Sheppard, Boston Strangler, JonBenet Ramsey. But while I was enjoyed it, I'm glad I just got it from the library.

Pass.