Bill James
Bill James
George William "Bill" Jamesis an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research, scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose. His Baseball Abstract books in the 1980s are the modern...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth5 October 1949
CountryUnited States of America
It's extremely damaging to a fair trial to have people reaching judgment about the case in the newspapers and on the radio before the facts are heard in a case.
The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork.
All societies have these cases. There are many, many crime cases that remain famous from the times of the Romans. The Bible is full of crime stories. You can almost flip to a page. Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers is a crime story. The Bible is full of crime stories.
Letting him manage in the major leagues is like sending Bo Derek through cellblock A without a bodyguard.
Do we need to have 280 brands of breakfast cereal? No, probably not. But we have them for a reason - because some people like them. It's the same with baseball statistics.
I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.
I tried not to write about the O.J. Simpson case too much because so much has already been said about it, but there are a lot of questions left worth asking. However, the case is very useful to illustrate other points. The case is a common reference point because everybody knows the ins and outs of it, more than any other case in this generation, so it becomes useful to reference other points. In itself, there aren't that many questions about it that remain unanswered.
Let's try to find ten good things to say about Albert Belle: 10. So far as we know, he's never killed anyone. 9. He is handsome, and built like a God. 8. He played every game. 7. He has never appeared on the Jerry Springer Show. 6. He was an underrated base runner who was rarely caught stealing. 5. He hasn't been arrested in several years. 4. He is very bright. 3. He works hard. 2. He has never spoken favorably about Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, or any other foreign madman. 1. The man could hit.
I do have a family, and obviously I spend as much time as I can with them. Though even when I'm with my family, my mind tends to drift toward baseball.
I like to feel that I understand little things about sports.
I try to take large, general questions that are difficult to resolve and break them down into small, very specific questions that have clear answers.
You're just too poor to get rich.
How easy it is for a fantasy to grab hold of your foot like a rope, and dangle your life upside down while brigands go through your pockets ... Deal with the life you've got. Solve the problems you have, rather than fantasizing about a life without them.
(Mantle) was clearly a greater player in his peak years.