Baseball

Sports

Baseball by the Numbers

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One of the fun elements of baseball (more than probably any other sport) is that it has a statistical richness through which one can completely divorce oneself from subjectivity. Take, for example, my beloved Boston Red Sox, who through May, June, and July were accused regularly of being playoff pretenders, to the point of being more than 10½ games behind the God-Damned, Mother-Fucking New York Yankees on August 16.

Tagged: Baseball, Bill James, Boston Red Sox, Red Sox, Sabermetrics
Sports

Curses!

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Perhaps baseball teams, more than franchises in any other sport, have memories, and perhaps they behave in relatively predictable ways decade after decade.

Tagged: Baseball
Sports

Diamond Scars

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In 1999, the person I’d just started dating commented in an e-mail that every time she read the Stephen King essay about baseball, she knew what it felt like to be one of those little leaguers, even though she (at the time) knew little of baseball and less of little league. I was struck immediately: It’s not how I felt in little league.

Tagged: Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Self-Involvement
Books Sports

Has Michael Lewis Struck Out?

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The irony of the success of Michael Lewis’ wonderful Moneyball is that it should bring the Oakland A’s back to earth. The justice is that Oakland’s demise doesn’t appear imminent. This is baseball, after all, and there’s no reason to change something just because it’s never worked very well.

Tagged: Baseball, Michael Lewis, Moneyball, Reviews