The Bill James incident that really impressed me had to do with Rogers Hornsby. Bill does NOT like Hornsby, or Hornsby's reputation. I think this is in his first Historical Abstract, but somewhere or other, Bill opined that Hornsby had an unusually large ballpark effect working in his favor in Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Well, someone had actually dug through the papers and had data for Hornsby's personal home/road splits in STL. They showed a neutral ballpark effect. Not only did Bill print all this up in his next book, but he spent his own money to purchase the data from the person who dug it up, so he could print it in his book. That's right: Bill James spent his own money to prove himself wrong on an issue where he has serious emotions. I decided at that point that I would never give Bill a serious hard time about anything he said, because, if you just have the data to prove him wrong, he has the ethics and self-esteem to acknowledge that.

It also started me thinking about the ballpark issue, and I've been trying to get someone with a good database to follow up on this for years. Sportsman's Park was sort of like a mirror image of Fenway. Very short in RF, normal in LF. In the 1930s, they had to put a screen in front of the RF seats to cut down on homers, much like the Green Monster. Knowing all that, I have very deep suspicions that the ballpark effects there vary WILDLY depending on whether you hit righty (Hornsby) or lefty. They probably get closer to balanced after the screen went up, since it turned homers into doubles, but that's after Hornsby left. The lefties need to get cut even more than they are now, while the righties may have actually had a reasonably neutral park. That would explain Hornsby's home/road splits.

- Brock Hanke

Over Christmas I boxed up the 1982-88 Abstracts and subsequent Bill James annuals I'd left at my parents home and brought them back with me. 20-30 years later, they're still incredible reading.

Perhaps I have not plugged the right numbers into the scheme. I do not know, exactly, how many runs Smith saved the Cardinals. But I have a hell of a lot better reason for thinking it was 25 or 35 than anybody has for thinking it was 100.

He had good instincts for the likely spread of fielding talent. But even saving 25-35 runs makes Ozzie somewhere between the 10th and 20th best position player in the league. That's not (usually) an MVP winner, but especially coming from a player on the league's best team it's a guy who deserves to be placed on some ballots.

Ozzie got no first place votes, and finished 13th in the balloting. Looks like the writers collectively got it right, and while I'm sure somebody said it, nobody among the voters believed that he saved 100 runs on defense anyway.

There’s a beautiful asymmetry to the reviews, and you could almost characterize them as blog posts in the parlance of the digital age. Some extended for several pages; others were only a sentence or two.

Pass.

I decided at that point that I would never give Bill a serious hard time about anything he said, because, if you just have the data to prove him wrong, he has the ethics and self-esteem to acknowledge that.

Did he ever apologize over his Pete Rose defense? He was waaaaay out there on that one.

I didn't discover James until 1983. I remember exactly when too. I was browsing the Waldenbooks sports section with my then fiancee and happened to pick it up. I immediately went to the Red Sox team section and was hooked. I bought it every year after that. I remember him calling Jerry Remy a "quiet little drain" on the Bosox offense. I found that satisfying because I used to get into an argument with a friend about Remy. I thought he sucked because he had zero power but my friend, and most other Red sox fans for that matter, thought he was good because he didn't strike out much.

Since I had missed the first commercial 1982 edition, the one with the yellow cover, I had always wondered what he had written in that one. Luckily, they had a copy of it in the undergraduate library where I went to grad school, so I got a chance to read that one too. He had a great comment for Butch Hobson in the '82 edition.

Did he ever apologize over his Pete Rose defense? He was waaaaay out there on that one.

Which one? The one in the 1990 Baseball Book, where he ripped apart the Dowd Report, or the one in the NHBA, where he critiqued Sean Lahman's work?

Didn't James ultimately argue that Ozzie Smith should have been the MVP over Andre Dawson in '87?

Another example of his undogmatic style was his conclusion that artificial turf did not lead to more injuries. After proving the point statistically he noted that George Brett and others report that it is painful to play on turf, that Brett was one of his heroes and that avoiding pain was a sufficient reason to get rid of turf.

I didn't discover James until the 1988 Abstract. I was able to fill in the rest of the nationally distributed ones through used bookstores then bought the reprints of the self-published ones directly from him to go along with the Great American Stat Books, the hardcover This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones, the Historical Abstracts, and Baseball Books of the late 80's and early 90's.

And what [2] said. I still grab one or two at a time and keep them by my recliner to pick a random spot in and start reading.

Did he ever apologize over his Pete Rose Joe Paterno defense?

Or for causing me to pick up future MVP Marc Newfield &/or future multiple Cy Young winner Arthur Rhodes for various fantasy teams in the early '90s?

Didn't James ultimately argue that Ozzie Smith should have been the MVP over Andre Dawson in '87?

Ozzie had added 20 points of OPS+ by then. He had gone from hitting like Darwin Barney to hitting like Jimmy Rollins, while keeping the same otherworldly defensive abilities.

I desperately wish Ozzie had won in 1987. The ball was juiced to the gills yet Ozzie would have been a deserving winner with ZERO home runs. How cool would that have been?

Ozzie had added 20 points of OPS+ by then. He had gone from hitting like Darwin Barney to hitting like Jimmy Rollins, while keeping the same otherworldly defensive abilities.

That was one of the great things about Ozzie. He worked hard to become an offensive asset; James himself praised Oz for this.

It also started me thinking about the ballpark issue, and I've been trying to get someone with a good database to follow up on this for years

Seamheads.com Ballparks Database

Brock. Fenway's not "normal" in right field. Fenway typically reduces homers by lefties 20% or so. It's a relatively tough place to hit a homer to right field even with the short foul line. You hit a ball 1 foot inside the right field foul line and you can get a homer for a 305 foot shot. You hit a ball 20 feet inside the right field foul line and you have to hit the ball 380 feet to get a homer.

KJOK and ROUGH -

THANKS! Seamheads does in fact have exactly what I've been looking for. And sure enough, every year that Rogers Hornsby played there (1920-26), the home run factor was better for lefties than righties. It was, in fact, often actually suppressing RH HRs (I'm assuming that the lower the number in their charts, the better the park was for pitchers. I couldn't find a glossary, but it's normal for lower to favor pitchers, and it checked out when I tried the Baker Bowl, a known bandbox.) I appreciate the info from Rough. I had no way of knowing what factors Fenway actually had in RF until KJOK pointed me to seamheads. I will be spending a depressing amount of time surfing through this database, but I've wanted to spend that time for years, and now I can. Thanks again! - Brock

Did he ever apologize over his Pete Rose defense? He was waaaaay out there on that one.

This will seem odd and perhaps Jamesian to say, but... Why would he apologize?

1. To admit his conclusion was wrong? Pointless. The whole world knows it's wrong. No apology would change that.

2. To demonstrate that he's aware his conclusion was wrong? This is also unnecessary.

3. To admit his analysis was wrong? If he believed the evidence at the time didn't prove anything, the later addition of unassailable evidence doesn't change the assessment of the evidence at the time. Might as well demand that the Yankees apologize for drafting Brien Taylor.

4. Because he'd want to restore his reputation? James knows well enough that reputation is earned, not begged.

Seamheads.com Ballparks Database

That website is the steam, the nuts, and every other superlative in the thesaurus. What a find.

hat website is the steam, the nuts, and every other superlative in the thesaurus.

the bee's knees, mayhaps?

The cat's pajamas.

I didn't discover James until 1983.

Damn, what took you so long??

The first Abstract I bought was also the 1983 edition, and in Waldenbooks. (Hmm, or was that a B. Dalton's?)

James is a real curmudgeon in his own way, and he rarely makes any apologies except in his OWN way, as Brock was kind enough to relate. However, as one who has actually worked in mathematics, his lack of rigor and his unwillingness to listen to opinions except in certain circumstances makes my take on him lower than when I was in college reading his first abstracts. Look at Cyril Morong if you want rigor and no bias.
Look, the basic tenet of Bill James is "look at the numbers and forget all else". Great, but he falls victim to the same thing. We all do that, because we all have an emotional attachment to baseball. Bill is no different.
I just hate it when he comes off as an all-mighty God of Non-Emotional Look at Baseball, such as:
(1) his accusation of nepotism as regards Haywood Sullivan's son. Hey, Bill has his wife, professional illustrator or not, draw some awfully sucked crap in his book. Well, its his book, right? Sure! But its Sullivan's club, too!
(2) his willingness to "tailor" the data to fit what his point is, such as his saying that W-L is not indicative of a pitcher's greatness but uses simply that to compare Lefty Grove with Carl Hubbell, and saying how Robin Roberts used to take a beating from the Dodgers from a certain year to a certain year ( I don't remember it exactly ) but conveniently starting after the year in which Roberts was 6-0 against them.
(3) his insinuation that Buzz Arlett was a much better ballplayer than Babe Herman, but all contemporary accounts and stuff I heard from really old-timers was that Herman was not as bad a fielder that people say he was and that Arlett was much, much worse.

I could go on and on ( I guess I already have. Sorry. ) At his best, Bill James is a most insightful and compelling writer. At his worst......

We all have our fondness for certain players and this makes baseball alive for all of us ( Someone ask Brock about Franklin Stubbs ). Bill sometimes can be mean about things.

Still, he belongs in the Hall of Fame. Heck, if Bowie Kuhn, a true sham artist who made a living out of pretensions is in there, why keep Bill out? For all of the cheap shots I took at him, the man made a real contribution to Baseball.

Bill: If you read this, the next time you pick an All-Ugly Team, pick yourself as the team analyst!

thank you, Suzy, for posting

Look, the basic tenet of Bill James is "look at the numbers and forget all else".

No, it's not. That's not even close. James is more likely to be skeptical of his own numbers than anyone else I know working in sabermetrics.

#22 Startlingly ignorant comments from somebody who's obviously read James.

As Tom notes in #24 he is not and never has been an all numbers guy. I assume you know he published an entire book of "no scary numbers" (This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones)

On the specific point of W/L record, he's held different positions over the years (and has said so). Last I heard, he thinks it carries some signal (which makes him different from most statheads), just not a lot. That said, the Grove/Hubbell comp is not his finest bit of analysis.

I'll also make the accusation of nepotism as to Sullivan having a career. He sure as hell didn't get a shot on merit.

I'd also assume you simply read a different comment about Arlett than I did.

EDIT: I've said before that his work with numbers is the weakest part of his game. I'd stand by that too.

Ron J: Accept your comments, but I beg to differ about the "ignorant" part: I had been so pissed since so long ago that it all came flooding out. I have been out of the country a lot and the only stuff I have had access to are all his old Abstracts and his original Historical text.

Sullivan: Sure. I agree with Bill, but just simply am saying that he is no one to expound upon it. If you had ever met his father, Haywood, a really nice man who really tried to see the best in anyone, you could see how the situation might have developed. Justification? Heck, no. Understanding? Yes. Especially when one considers that his father played 7 years in thee majors with stats not that much better than his son.

Arlett: Perhaps. Much of what I gleaned about the old years was when I was at Ted Williams' baseball camp, when many people dropped by and told us stories by the campfire. The things I remember clearly, I tried to check out later.

Tom: If you had actually encountered Bill when he first put his Abstracts out, that is ALL he would say, again and again, to ANYONE who would listen. Again, I have been out of touch for a long time except over the Internet. When I tried to have the new Historical text with other books sent to me, Chinese officials confiscated them as being "subversive literature".

My apologies to all who I may have offended.

If you had ever met his father, Haywood, a really nice man who really tried to see the best in anyone, you could see how the situation might have developed. Justification? Heck, no. Understanding? Yes. Especially when one considers that his father played 7 years in thee majors with stats not that much better than his son.

Haywood tried to see the best in everybody, except black people, players who weren't straight laced Republicans, and Buddy LeRoux. He was a crappy GM who drafted his own kid and may possibly have ran Pudge Fisk out of town in order to give his kid the job someday in the future. I don't care whether he was nice to you in a Winter Haven hotel, he held the Red Sox back in more ways than one.

It's not like James broke ground in accusing Sullivan of nepotism, everybody in Boston at the time felt and feels the same way.

Sullivan: Sure. I agree with Bill, but just simply am saying that he is no one to expound upon it. If you had ever met his father, Haywood, a really nice man who really tried to see the best in anyone, you could see how the situation might have developed.

Is this really true though? Did he really try to see the best in Carleton Fisk before letting him walk and getting nothing in return (and the timing was certainly suspicious, since his no-talent son ascended to the majors the following year)? And did he have to waste a 2nd round draft pick on Marc? He could have gotten him in the 50th round if he had wanted to. Did he really see the best in Tim Laudner or Bob Melvin or John Russell or Mark Parent, catchers chosen behind his son who were legitimate MLB prospects?

And he didn't have a great reputation amongst black players. He was seen as Yawkey's toady, and not without good reason. While Sullivan was CEO, the team was sued by Tommy Harper for firing him after he complained about the team's association with the segregationist Elks's club. The suit was upheld by the EEO. Did he try to see the best in Harper when firing him?

Dick O'Connell was probably the man most responsible for desegregating the Red Sox. O'Connell and Sullivan did not have a good working relationship. Why do you think that was?

EDIT: Pop to Flynn

This will seem odd and perhaps Jamesian to say, but... Why would he apologize?

To make amends to the people whose integrity and competence he questioned in a reflexive way with nothing to back it up?

That website is the steam, the nuts, and every other superlative in the thesaurus.

the bee's knees, mayhaps?

--------------------------------

The cat's pajamas.

Or maybe the tomcat's nuts.

As I inhaled my first Baseball Abstact in the spring of 1982, a light came on in my life. It was not so much the brilliant statistical analysis as it was James' way of objectively observing a phenomenon and attempting to view possible explanations from all angles.

His essays on politics, philosophy, science, and religion were always written in a baseball context, so that they directly communicated to me.

Bill James, thank you for being a strong influence in my life.

the bee's knees, mayhaps?

--------------------------------

The cat's pajamas.

Or maybe the tomcat's nuts.

One of my favorite examples of exercises in literary excess is in John Barth's The Sot Weed Factor where two whores shout one-word epithets (all synonyms of, say, slut) at each other for what seems like seven pages in memory. Just an idea for an OT topic.

The Cat's Pajamas is one of two great novellas by Peter DeVries from his nihilistic black humor period. Its companion was Witch's Milk.. After The Vale of Laughter and The Cat's Pajamas & Witch's Milk, there was pretty much no place for him to go. He had backed himself against a wall. How he got there and his maneuverings once he got there are pretty thrilling, though. And, in fact, The CP is pure tragi-farce; Witch's Milk is has a turnaround from the tragic--as does the great The Vale of Laughter.

When I tried to have the new Historical text with other books sent to me, Chinese officials confiscated them as being "subversive literature".

Quoted for awesomeness.

I read, and have, all the Abstracts starting with the first of those he self-published in manuscript form before he found a publisher. Bill was most instrumental in changing the way smart people talked about baseball. Very early on, though, he denied he was only interested in number crunching. That, to me, seems to be corroborated by the larger sense his books on the Hall of Fame and both Historical Abstracts take. Indeed, in his rankings in the NBHA he specifically allows himself conditional fudge room and his discussion of specific players make it clear it isn't just about numbers. He does contradict himself and is sometimes inconsistent, which I think was put to rest by Ralph Waldo Emerson long ago.

33:

As of course they are, as are all books that promote thinking. And, the inevitable consequence of that is that some people will even start thinking about what the substance of what you say and write. Tsk tsk.

In the documentary film about Ralph Nader, An Unreasonable Man, the most telling point about his character, his cantankerous independence, is when Ralph recounts how when he come home from school as a kid, his father would ask: Well, Ralph, what did you learn at school today? Did you learn to think or did you learn to believe?

One of my favorite examples of exercises in literary excess is in John Barth's The Sot Weed Factor where two whores shout one-word epithets (all synonyms of, say, slut) at each other for what seems like seven pages in memory. Just an idea for an OT topic.

I'd love to see Rosie Perez and the young Winona Ryder take on that exchange.

33:

As of course they are, as are all books that promote thinking. And, the inevitable consequence of that is that some people will even start thinking about what the substance of what you say and write. Tsk tsk.

Most likely. Though it's also possible that the bureaucrat checking the shipments simply decided that he wanted a copy of the book for himself, and saw a way to get one super cheap.

DB

Over Christmas I boxed up the 1982-88 Abstracts and subsequent Bill James annuals I'd left at my parents home and brought them back with me. 20-30 years later, they're still incredible reading.

They sure are. Bill James is, first and foremost, a helluva good writer.

It shouldn't be forgotten that BJ didn't have the luxury we have of having it all figured out. He had to figure it out, and the trajectory of his thinking shows that the first twenty years or so of his career represents an ever-developing learning curve. He contradicted himself, he was inconsistent, because he was learning stuff. That's entitle to some respect, i would think.

#29 But who are we talking about here? Dowd, sure. But Dowd at minimum over-sold what he had and deserved to be called out on some aspects. (The report itself is frankly garbage in a lot of places. There's an awful lot of good work supporting it, and guys like Sean Lahman and Dale Stephenson were willing to dig into this)

Sean Lahman? Well Sean's a big boy who sometimes lurks here. He can speak for himself, but I doubt he ever felt his integrity or competence was challenged. In the case of Sean, there's a dispute as to what the facts are and Sean generally had the right of it (and James' presentation is on the snide side. Snide plus factually incorrect is not a good combination.)

Beyond that? I think a lot of people are reacting more to the tone of what James wrote about Rose rather than the substance. He was arguing more "not proven beyond a reasonable doubt" (I believe the phrasing he used in the second round was, "You don't know and I don't know") than not guilty. And it's surely worth noting that James stipulates that even by the most generous interpretation, Rose had earned a lengthy suspension.

Now as I've pointed out many times before, "not proven beyond a reasonable doubt" is not the standard Rose was up against (preponderance of evidence in the Commissioner's mind), so in a sense James' arguments were framed in a way that didn't really matter. Rose wasn't in a position where railing against things like the "betting slips" (which were nothing of the sort. They are plausibly evidence of what he was thinking, they were not redeemable for cash) would help him. He couldn't win by raising doubts at the edge, he had to at minimum refute (not deny) some aspect of Dowd's work.

( Someone ask Brock about Franklin Stubbs )

I love the idea of Brock driving around in a car with a bumper sticker saying "Ask me about Franklin Stubbs."

Tom: If you had actually encountered Bill when he first put his Abstracts out, that is ALL he would say, again and again, to ANYONE who would listen.

I bought my first Abstract in 1981, so perhaps I missed something he said at "first," but he has never claimed anything like what you said in the past 30 years. In the first Historical Abstract, published in 1985, he wrote: "...in evaluating players, much respect should be given to the opinions of the player's contemporaries, both afield and in the press box." I don't know how long you've been out of touch, but apparently James converted from that "believe in the numbers and ignore everything else" stance sometime before 1985.

#41 He was however always about, "what does the evidence say". And the evidence will generally be based on the numbers.

He's talked about this many times, see for instance the intro to the 1984 Abstract (where he makes it clear that he's personally not influenced by "inside baseball") and contrast that to the intro to "Bones" (where he makes it clear that he's really not about the numbers, it's just that the numbers can be the only way to objectively approach a problem)

He's also talked about times to be wary of contemporary opinions. Particularly when it comes to the defensive limitations of a Phelpser (using Mike Easler of an example of a guy whose defensive limitations were over-sold for years to explain why he never got a real shot. This does touch on Herman/Arlett)

Actually, all I would know bout Franklin Stubbs is that he was a mediocre first baseman with the Dodgers for a while back in years I don't remember. The other thing I would say is that, because players of Stubbs' ability level are many, it's easy for even a slight fluke to drag a man's ratings up or down through the ordinals pretty fast, which means they are the hardest kind of player to analyze.

When I went to talk to Bill about picking up the Baseball Abstract franchise (I and a gentleman named Rob Wood did the 1989 Abstract, with Don Malcolm as the major third party), Bill only told me that he would prefer I do one thing: When ranking players, don't just go by the WAR lists you will get. Make some subjective moves, because the numbers aren't solid granite everything. I actually didn't do that, reasoning that I wasn't BILL JAMES, and people would be a bit queasy to go along with my subjective opinions. The more I think about it, the worse a decision I think I made. Putting in subjective moves is a way of getting your readers to figure out for you whether you are any good at that or not. It would have been training in how to develop my own brand name. So, Bill, you were right again. It's NOT always about the numbers.

- Brock

"It shouldn't be forgotten that BJ didn't have the luxury we have of having it all figured out. He had to figure it out, and the trajectory of his thinking shows that the first twenty years or so of his career represents an ever-developing learning curve. He contradicted himself, he was inconsistent, because he was learning stuff. That's entitle to some respect, i would think."

I mostly agree with this, though I would strongly object to the idea that we have it all figured out now. If you meant it in a relative sense, that we have a lot more figured out about baseball than when James started, you're right. I don't particularly care whether he ranks on guy 43 and another who I'm convinced was better at 57. The historical abstracts have stood the test of time and are still great reading because 1) he's a great writer and 2) he did a hell of a job condensing the written records of so many players. You can learn quite a bit from them, and I'll grant him a pass on Bagwell.

Putting in subjective moves is a way of getting your readers to figure out for you whether you are any good at that or not. It would have been training in how to develop my own brand name. So, Bill, you were right again. It's NOT always about the numbers.

All great artists (Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, Picasso and Degas) leave room for his audience/recipient to collaborate with him.

I don't particularly care whether he ranks on guy 43 and another who I'm convinced was better at 57.

And he didn't care either. There's a point where it gets down to the "merely" personal--at that point, it should be because that that's all that's left. The personal is interesting, but what makes it more than just interesting is what comes before that which leaves you stranded with nothing left but a reliance on only the personal. That's a system; that's the institutionalization of whatever is at issue--art, politics, or sports, whatever.

Bill only told me that he would prefer I do one thing: When ranking players, don't just go by the WAR lists you will get. Make some subjective moves, because the numbers aren't solid granite everything.

I think a lot of people forget that ranking players by numbers only also requires a lot of subjective input. There will always be decisions about how to weight different things, what to leave in, what to leave out, how to account for park effects, etc.

Ranking players by the number of homers they hit or the number of strikeouts they recorded is objective. Ranking players on their overall value has always been, and will always be, subjective.

johnhollinger John Hollinger

First #ssac lifetime achievement award goes to Bill James. duh. Practice run for Cooperstown.