An updated Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James would be like Christmas, summer vacation and a first trip to a MLB game all wrapped into one incredible experience!
As I've said many times in frustration, I can't believe the KC Star didn't hire Bill James as some kind of contributing writer back in the '90s. Or even '80s. What a miss!
Sorry to hijack your blog, but I can’t get any support from Substack so in desperation I’m reaching out to you. Since my renewal last month I no longer get any emails. Yes, I’ve done everything in the Substack “Help Center”, it didn’t help. Hoping you have “contacts” that can solve this mystery...
Bill James is my idol, and although I've done no more than meet him, and he wouldn't know me, he is one of the most important people in my life. That said, I have noticed that tendency to disagree with everything right off, and have to say that I don't understand it and don't like it. And the reason I don't is that what should excite you is not questions, but truth. So, presumably when someone brings an idea to you, sometimes it must be new to you and potentially true and therefore exciting. I will say that James is as good as the next person about praising people in print, when he's had time to mull over their contributions. I suppose he might perceive the interest in what people are saying right off, and just have a bad habit of not expressing that, or have an inability to.
Unlike Bill himself, I much preferred the first Historical Abstract to the second, and so am not hoping for a third. I'm sure that was mostly a matter of where I was in my life when I read both of them. Maybe you can only love one. Two things that I don't think James does particularly well are write player biographies and make observations about what he sees. I think his talent lies in his analytical powers, not his eye for the game. There was much that was bland in the second Abstract, much in the same way there was with his "Baseball Book" annuals that followed the Abstracts and fell flat.
I think there is a good dystopian novel to be written , "Ralph Kiner's World," which should begin from the premise that only boys born on Father's Day are allowed to be fathers themselves. That would get rid of the conflict between Happy Birthdays and Happy Father's Days.
You're right about the Nuggets at one point being 1 for 34573289 from beyond the arc. Worth noting though that at that time, the one that did go in was shot by Jokic. They started falling for Denver after awhile but I couldn't believe how many 3-point attempts clanked. And they were great looks, some of them! This doesn't really fit the narrative of "Miami turned it into a street brawl," which they absolutely did (it takes two to commit a turnover ya know - that's not just sloppy play by Denver), but I'm certain that at one point near the end of the second quarter Denver had gone 1 for 12 something from three, and Miami led by 5. I turned to my friend watching and said "if Denver was even shooting 25% from three, they'd have the lead." Miami was gifted some good luck that Denver had such bad luck. The game is very different if Denver has a normal first half shooting three pointers.
I grew up on Bill James and the Abstracts. There probably isn't a person who has influenced my thinking about anything more than Bill has. His ability to study an individual issue and get to the core of it, while still being able to write so engagingly, is awe-inspiring. He's my favorite writer other than Joe.
But I wonder if his influence hasn't been a net negative? It's not just that teams follow an analytic blueprint and all play the same style, which is just boring, as contrasts is one of the most exciting things in sports... it's that I feel arguments have gotten dumber. Instead of really digging into issues and thinking about the games operate, online discourse has degenerated into reducing player performance to a single number of value. WAR or PER can be useful when making cross-generational comparisons, but it tell us so little about a player. And this reduction of all performance to one single metric has made some sports analysis less interesting and illuminating. It's also the complete antithesis of Bill's entire lifetime of work.
The best things about those old numbers is they measured a real thing. They didn't measure value, they measured occurrences, by and large. And there's something to first looking at what happened before we try to analyze why. They are both formulas, but a WAR of 2.0 is saying a player is worth 2 wins and a batting average of 300 says that he got a hit in 30% of his at bats. That's fundamentally different.
Blaming Bill because other people make dumb arguments is... well, dumb. 😉 With or without Bill, people will continue to be people and will often continue to make shallow, illogical comments.
Joe, you will probably write 100,000 more words on this substack this year, but I can't imagine many better than what you put in today's edition. The comment on the photo of Jokic and his daughter, making you both incredibly happy and sad at the same time... Wow (only dads of daughters would get that). The bits about Dave Kindred...wonderful. Not sure how your fans can post on YOUR site that Bill James is the most remarkable baseball writer of all time as good as Bill James has been... Thank you for sharing your heart with your readers.
I can't wait to read Why We Love Baseball. However, I'm willing to wait a bit longer if you can somehow include a chapter on last night's Reds/Royals game, aka The Ricky Karcher Game!
I like to think I’m fairly literate. I read a lot, including history, biographies, the occasional literary fiction. But The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is my favorite book of all time. I really hope there’s a new one someday.
As far as Rod Carew (who I loved as a player), I think we need to distinguish between the tools and how (too) many baseball people have chosen to use them. As a fan, I still love the magic of the BA/HR/RBI stat line. And I also appreciate the added dimension of the Sabermetrics tools.
I would be happy with just an update, and writing about the last couple of decades as he did the earlier ones in the first one. A continuation, if you will, and update of some of the lists.
Bill James is the most remarkable baseball writer of all time. I still have a set of his original Baseball Abstracts. Joe, if you could offer Bill a place to share his thoughts from time to time, I would love it.
Kiner must have been talking to me -- this Sunday is also my 75th birthday!
Thanks for the tribute to the indispensable Bill James. I’ve been reading him since the first mass market Abstract, and have never felt like a moment was wasted. My first reaction was a bit like yours -- “Oh, boy, this means more Bill James books!”
And I have JoeBlogs to give me my daily fix of brilliant thinking and brilliant writing about sports, entertainment and family. Happy Father’s Day, Joe. Hope we’ll see you at the Tucson Festival of Books next (and every) March.
60 Minutes had an excellent feature a couple of years ago on Dave Kindred covering that high school girls basketball team.
An updated Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James would be like Christmas, summer vacation and a first trip to a MLB game all wrapped into one incredible experience!
Does Rod Carew know who Henry Chadwick is? Does he think he had an amazing glove at short?
"...comes with its own jester."
Very funny.
As I've said many times in frustration, I can't believe the KC Star didn't hire Bill James as some kind of contributing writer back in the '90s. Or even '80s. What a miss!
Sorry to hijack your blog, but I can’t get any support from Substack so in desperation I’m reaching out to you. Since my renewal last month I no longer get any emails. Yes, I’ve done everything in the Substack “Help Center”, it didn’t help. Hoping you have “contacts” that can solve this mystery...
Bill James is my idol, and although I've done no more than meet him, and he wouldn't know me, he is one of the most important people in my life. That said, I have noticed that tendency to disagree with everything right off, and have to say that I don't understand it and don't like it. And the reason I don't is that what should excite you is not questions, but truth. So, presumably when someone brings an idea to you, sometimes it must be new to you and potentially true and therefore exciting. I will say that James is as good as the next person about praising people in print, when he's had time to mull over their contributions. I suppose he might perceive the interest in what people are saying right off, and just have a bad habit of not expressing that, or have an inability to.
Unlike Bill himself, I much preferred the first Historical Abstract to the second, and so am not hoping for a third. I'm sure that was mostly a matter of where I was in my life when I read both of them. Maybe you can only love one. Two things that I don't think James does particularly well are write player biographies and make observations about what he sees. I think his talent lies in his analytical powers, not his eye for the game. There was much that was bland in the second Abstract, much in the same way there was with his "Baseball Book" annuals that followed the Abstracts and fell flat.
I think there is a good dystopian novel to be written , "Ralph Kiner's World," which should begin from the premise that only boys born on Father's Day are allowed to be fathers themselves. That would get rid of the conflict between Happy Birthdays and Happy Father's Days.
Meanwhile, Tuesday night Rafael Devers belted a leadoff two-run homer in the 10th. The zombie runner makes the impossible possible.
“On Father's Day, we again wish you all happy birthday.” Internet version of the Kiner quote.
I agree with Bill James.
You're right about the Nuggets at one point being 1 for 34573289 from beyond the arc. Worth noting though that at that time, the one that did go in was shot by Jokic. They started falling for Denver after awhile but I couldn't believe how many 3-point attempts clanked. And they were great looks, some of them! This doesn't really fit the narrative of "Miami turned it into a street brawl," which they absolutely did (it takes two to commit a turnover ya know - that's not just sloppy play by Denver), but I'm certain that at one point near the end of the second quarter Denver had gone 1 for 12 something from three, and Miami led by 5. I turned to my friend watching and said "if Denver was even shooting 25% from three, they'd have the lead." Miami was gifted some good luck that Denver had such bad luck. The game is very different if Denver has a normal first half shooting three pointers.
Happy Father's Day to all the dads!
I grew up on Bill James and the Abstracts. There probably isn't a person who has influenced my thinking about anything more than Bill has. His ability to study an individual issue and get to the core of it, while still being able to write so engagingly, is awe-inspiring. He's my favorite writer other than Joe.
But I wonder if his influence hasn't been a net negative? It's not just that teams follow an analytic blueprint and all play the same style, which is just boring, as contrasts is one of the most exciting things in sports... it's that I feel arguments have gotten dumber. Instead of really digging into issues and thinking about the games operate, online discourse has degenerated into reducing player performance to a single number of value. WAR or PER can be useful when making cross-generational comparisons, but it tell us so little about a player. And this reduction of all performance to one single metric has made some sports analysis less interesting and illuminating. It's also the complete antithesis of Bill's entire lifetime of work.
The best things about those old numbers is they measured a real thing. They didn't measure value, they measured occurrences, by and large. And there's something to first looking at what happened before we try to analyze why. They are both formulas, but a WAR of 2.0 is saying a player is worth 2 wins and a batting average of 300 says that he got a hit in 30% of his at bats. That's fundamentally different.
Blaming Bill because other people make dumb arguments is... well, dumb. 😉 With or without Bill, people will continue to be people and will often continue to make shallow, illogical comments.
Joe, you will probably write 100,000 more words on this substack this year, but I can't imagine many better than what you put in today's edition. The comment on the photo of Jokic and his daughter, making you both incredibly happy and sad at the same time... Wow (only dads of daughters would get that). The bits about Dave Kindred...wonderful. Not sure how your fans can post on YOUR site that Bill James is the most remarkable baseball writer of all time as good as Bill James has been... Thank you for sharing your heart with your readers.
I can't wait to read Why We Love Baseball. However, I'm willing to wait a bit longer if you can somehow include a chapter on last night's Reds/Royals game, aka The Ricky Karcher Game!
I like to think I’m fairly literate. I read a lot, including history, biographies, the occasional literary fiction. But The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is my favorite book of all time. I really hope there’s a new one someday.
As far as Rod Carew (who I loved as a player), I think we need to distinguish between the tools and how (too) many baseball people have chosen to use them. As a fan, I still love the magic of the BA/HR/RBI stat line. And I also appreciate the added dimension of the Sabermetrics tools.
I agree. I also read a lot, and I totally agree with your sentiment about the NBJHBA. I would add that the original was really good as well.
I would be happy with just an update, and writing about the last couple of decades as he did the earlier ones in the first one. A continuation, if you will, and update of some of the lists.
Bill James is the most remarkable baseball writer of all time. I still have a set of his original Baseball Abstracts. Joe, if you could offer Bill a place to share his thoughts from time to time, I would love it.
Kiner must have been talking to me -- this Sunday is also my 75th birthday!
Thanks for the tribute to the indispensable Bill James. I’ve been reading him since the first mass market Abstract, and have never felt like a moment was wasted. My first reaction was a bit like yours -- “Oh, boy, this means more Bill James books!”
And I have JoeBlogs to give me my daily fix of brilliant thinking and brilliant writing about sports, entertainment and family. Happy Father’s Day, Joe. Hope we’ll see you at the Tucson Festival of Books next (and every) March.