Bill James

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“Information Ties The Fans To The Game”

September 22, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Even geniuses aren’t perfect: Billy Beane is the GM of the last-place Oakland A’s and Bill James Senior Advisor to the last-place Boston Red Sox, but they’re two of the pivotal figures in the development and popularization of Sabermetrics. In fact, James is likely the most influential of them all.

Of course, some bright people have the propensity to overthink things and outsmart themselves. For no real reason, Beane decided to trade affordable MVP candidate Josh Donaldson in the offseason for a couple of decent players and perhaps a great future shortstop, even though his team was built to compete now and playing in a very winnable division.

James’ sins haven’t been so slight, not just limited to puzzling player personnel decisions. He’s gone out of his way to defend Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who clearly looked the other way while a pedophilia scandal was brewing right in front of his black glasses. In this case, James’ contrarian streak, which made him great, also laid him low.

The two figures had never appeared in public together until last week’s business-disruption conference hosted by NetSuite. Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal gathered them and moderated a discussion about the future of Sabermetrics, etc. An excerpt:

WSJ:

Clearly, sabermetrics has improved the management of the game tremendously. How, if at all, has it made baseball a better game to watch?

Bill James:

I don’t know that it has, but we produce information, and information ties the fans to the game. People in a culture with no information about baseball have no interest in baseball. If you give people a little bit of information about baseball, they have a little bit of interest, and if you give them a lot of information about baseball, there’s the potential that they have a lot of interest. I’ve lived most of my life in the fans’ world and I see what I do as a fan’s activity. Granted, I work for the Red Sox. But I do know also that there are fans who go to sleep cursing my name.

Billy Beane:

It’s a different generation of fan that now has exposure and an interest in why things happen. Give them some rational reason for outcomes. We’re an information-hungry society, and one that is constantly trying to understand. I think there are a group of kids who love it for the numbers and love it for the information.

WSJ:

We’ve seen advances in particular areas of the game in recent years—pitch framing, defensive shifts—that are now better understood. What do you guys see as the aspect of the sport that is most in need of more research, more data and better understanding?

Billy Beane:

I’m jumping out of my chair on this one. It’s using analytics—and this sounds sort of non-field-related—but it’s injuries and medical. Even the healthcare industry is doing the same thing – trying to use big data to help solve healthcare. It’s the same in a simpler form for baseball or any sport and injuries. That’s the black swan for anyone involved in a baseball team—our injuries. Trying to predict them, minimize them, limit the downtime.•

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“What Fraction Of The Population Would You Say Has The Potential To Become A Serial Killer?”

February 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Sometimes I think Bill James’ opinions are quite plausible (the JFK assassination) and sometimes a little bonkers (the Dowd Report, the Penn State scandal), but he certainly doesn’t steer from dangerous waters. In his latest batch of Hey Bill questions, the baseball analyst, who is also a true-crime historian, answers a query about serial murderers. The exchange:

Question:

What fraction of the population would you say has the potential to become a serial killer, under the right circumstances? If you or I had been subjected to the “right” stimuli, could either of us ever murder a series of strangers, or do you have to be born with your wiring all wrong? And if it is (as I hope) only a fraction of potential serial killers among us with screwed-up wiring, how many of them actually kill people?

Bill James:

Well, I suppose I’ll pay a price for saying this in public, but I have always felt that there was just some very small difference that separated me from the serial murderers, some “switch” in my makeup that was different. . .but just one switch, or just two or three switches, nothing big. As to being subjected to the “right” stimuli. . .well, in all candor my childhood WAS very much like the childhood that many of these people have. But whereas they react, as a first manifestation of their condition, by torturing animals, I am just opposite; I could never stand to cause suffering or to see suffering in an animal or to another person; I was always hyper-sensitive to it, rather than insensitive to it. I am certain, in the same way that gay people are certain that they are born gay, that I was born this way and could not choose to be different. . .and I am grateful that I was, as I shudder to think who I would have become if a few switches were flipped the other way. I think, responding to the question “is it only a fraction of potential serial killers among us”. . .I think that all of the switches have to be turned one way for a person to turn out that way, and that there are not that many people who have all 28 switches set in the serial-murderer position. . ..but that there are many, many of us who have 24 or 25 switches pointed in that direction, with just a few that are somewhere else. This isn’t to be taken to imply that I have any sympathy for these people or think that their guilt should in any sense be lifted from them. We all have choices, to do good or to do evil, but the people who choose to do good are not really very much different from those who choose to be wicked.•

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Old Print Articles: The Sport Of Indoor Baseball, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1912-39)

January 23, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

I was reading the “Hey Bill” Q&A section of Bill James’ site, and this question was posed:

Hey Bill, I thought it was interesting in 1939 the National Professional Indoor Baseball League was launched with Tris Speaker and franchises managed by guys like Bill Wambsganss, Moose McCormick, and Harry Davis. It went one and done though, disbanded after that season. Do you know how the actual play was set up?

Answered: 1/21/2015

Don’t know that I’ve ever heard of it.•

Indoor baseball, while clearly nowhere near as popular as its outdoor counterpart, was a dogged part of the American sporting scene from the 1890s till the late ’30s. Before the game essentially became softball, it was played on a pro level during the winter months at armories in front of crowds of up to 1,500 fans. Decidedly different than the summer game were the rules (e.g., 35-foot basepaths) and equipment (ball was larger and softer). The most famous iteration of the game was the short-lived 1939 National Professional Indoor Baseball League, which was presided over by the former MLB great Tris Speaker. Below are several pieces from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle about various versions of the game.

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From May 5, 1912:

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From November 20, 1939:

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From November 21, 1939:

 

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From November 22, 1939:

 

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“I Do Favor A ’10 To 1′ Law”

June 26, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

Baseball-stats and true-crime expert Bill James is a brilliant and occasionally maddening person, who can cut through the bullshit of JFK assassination theories yet create some doozies of his own in defending Joe Paterno’s handling of Jerry Sandusky. James’ politics unsurprisingly seem to be complex, a bricolage of beliefs. On his site, he’s provided a simple and straightforward solution to the executive-pay portion of the wealth-disparity argument in America. Courtesy of Tim Marchman at Deadspin, here it is in a nutshell:

“I suppose it is quasi-socialist of me, but I do favor a ’10 to 1′ law stating that no company may pay any employee more than ten times as much as it pays any other employee, on a full-time basis. Enforceable by lawsuit: If your company pays anyone else ten times more than they pay you, you can bring suit against the company AND against the person who is excessively compensated.”

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“I Don’t Think Lee Harvey Oswald Was The Trigger Man For Any Group”

November 24, 2013 in Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I don’t think there was a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy, and I can’t take anyone seriously who refers to Oliver Stone’s ridiculous JFK movie to argue the contrary. It’s not that a lot of people didn’t want him dead, but I don’t think Lee Harvey Oswald was the trigger man for any group. Oswald probably acted alone. He almost definitely wasn’t in cahoots with Cuba or Russia or any other foreign power. It’s somewhat possible he may have been acting in concert with American mob figures, but it’s doubtful, and there’s no good proof of any such cabal. Jack Ruby likewise probably acted alone in murdering Oswald, envisioning himself as a national hero for his deed. 

There is one interesting theory that can’t be completely dismissed: Perhaps the final bullet that struck and killed the President was an accidental discharge from a Secret Service agent. This idea has survived for three reasons: 1) The last bullet impacted differently than the first, causing an explosion of flesh 2) Some doubt Oswald’s ability for such pinpoint accuracy at such a distance with such a cheap weapon 3) Quite a few witnesses on the ground reported smelling gunpowder.

I don’t believe this theory, either. Ammo can react differently in different situations and a direct hit to the back from one angle will not necessarily create the same result as one to the head from another. Oswald was a highly trained marksman, and I think it’s very possible he could reach a target in a slow-moving vehicle. Bullets hitting more than one person and causing someone’s brain to explode might cause a smell that’s similar to gunpowder. There were also likely tires straining quickly in every direction which can cause a burning smell. And let’s remember that the witness closest to Oswald in the book depository distinctly heard three registers.

During the first 35 minutes of a recent Grantland podcast, Bill Simmons and Chris Connelly interview Bill James, who subscribes to the Secret Service theory. In addition to being one of baseball’s sabermetrics pioneers, James has written about the assassination in his book on true crime. I was disappointed by James’ stance in the wake of the Penn State pedophilia scandal, but he’s very sober-minded in this discussion. The only comment James makes in the podcast that I take issue with is his assertion that Oswald striking Kennedy more than once in a matter of seconds is tantamount to James himself being able to hit a home run off Roger Clemens. It’s a poor analogy. Oswald had a professional level of marksmanship and James does not have that level of athletic ability, especially in middle age. And James didn’t seem to be employing hyperbole. But it’s an interesting conversation overall.• Listen here.

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“He’s Permanently Damaged His Credibility”

July 16, 2012 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

I generally applaud contrarians, even when I completely disagree with them. People who go against the grain are very useful to the larger discussion. Baseball stats guru Bill James has long been one of those flies in the ointment pointing out truths about sports and beyond and making the conversation richer for it. But it will be tough to ever take his reasoning seriously again after his ludicrous defense of Joe Paterno’s role in enabling Jerry Sandusky’s disgraceful behavior. Why James would try to split hairs over minor points when the preponderance of evidence against Paterno and Penn State stares him in the face is beyond me. He’s permanently damaged his credibility. From James:

“The Freeh reports states quite explicitly and at least six times (a) that the 1998 incident did NOT involve any criminal conduct—on the part of Sandusky or anyone else—and (b) that Paterno had forced the resignation of Sandusky before the 1998 incident occurred … In any case, what EXACTLY is it that Paterno should have done? Fire him again? It is preposterous to argue, in my view, that PATERNO should have taken action after all of the people who were legally charged to take action had thoroughly examined the case and decided that no action was appropriate.”

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“It Damages The Culture For Sports To Be Allowed To Become Something Foreign And Unnatural”

June 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Baseball stats guru Bill James believes that steroids (or some derivative) will be eventually be safe and legal, but that doesn’t mean he thinks that Congress wasted money on the steroids hearings. He says as much in a recent Q&A session with readers on his site, providing four reasons why he feels that way, though I think reasons 3 and 4 aren’t particularly sturdy. The exchange:

“Q: In your recent piece on [Roger] Clemens, you write, ‘My view is that…it was an entirely appropriate use of the power of congress to step in and tell them to fix the problem.’ What was ‘the problem’? I assume you’re referring to steroids and HGH, but why do you consider them a problem?

A: I would say there were four reasons that it was a problem:

1) It was disrespectful of the law,

2) It promoted the widespread use of potentially dangerous and harmful substances by young people aspiring to be athletes,

3) The public largely despised the use of steroids by athletes, and

4) If sports are a significant cultural activity, which I believe they are, then it damages the culture for sports to be allowed to become something foreign and unnatural.”

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“How Did Prisons Become These Violent Hellholes That They Now Are?”

March 21, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

In “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” a discursive, funny and sort of nutty Grantland article, stats guru Bill James explains why crowd decorum at baseball games has improved while inmate behavior in penitentiaries has deteriorated. An excerpt:

“In his 1929 book 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, Warden Lewis E. Lawes says that his young daughter, who was born inside the prison, knew all of the prisoners and was allowed to wander freely around the prison, with a few obvious out-of-bounds penalties. Think about what a different world that is from a modern prison. If I could divert your attention for just a second with a serious question: How did we slip backward like that? How did prisons become these violent hellholes that they now are, so that it is unimaginable to have an 8-year-old girl wandering the hallways of a maximum-security lockup?”

Read also:

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The First Computer That Bill James Used

March 4, 2012 in Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Just listened to a fun interview that Bill Simmons did with stats guru Bill James at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. I paid close attention to James’ ability to remember names and dates, and like pretty much every informavore I’ve ever encountered, his recall isn’t very good. The memory is just so elastic even for someone who’s brilliant, except for a few anomalies. Interesting that James points out that he was actually aided in his early career in the 1970s by working with numbers in a time before everyone had a computer or two in their pocket. Because collecting and crunching info was so difficult in an unwired world, others interested in sports stats pretty much gave up while James soldiered on. An excerpt from James talking about his first use of computers:

“Bill Simmons: There’s no way you’re using a computer at this time?

Bill James: We didn’t have personal computers, no. Everything was handwritten and in notebooks.

Bill Simmons: When did you move over to the personal computer?

Bill James: I enjoyed personal compyers as soon as they came out–

Bill Simmons: I would have guessed.

Bill James: I never could program or anything like that. We had a Kaypro…I had a spreadsheet on it that was 32 cells long and 16 wide.”

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A great 1983 Kaypro commercial by ad legend Joe Sedelmaier:

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“We Can Reliably Foresee A Time In Which Everybody Is Going To Be Using Steroids Or Their Pharmaceutical Descendants”

July 15, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Debbie Bramwell: Holy fuck. (Image by Lukascb.)

In the future, Bill James’s 2009 statement about performance-enhancing drugs will likely be proven right:

“If we look into the future, then, we can reliably foresee a time in which everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants. We will learn to control the health risks of these drugs, or we will develop alternatives to them. Once that happens, people will start living to age 200 or 300 or 1,000, and doctors will begin routinely prescribing drugs to help you live to be 200 or 300 or 1,000. If you look into the future 40 or 50 years, I think it is quite likely that every citizen will routinely take anti-aging pills every day.”

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“In A Violentocracy, The Most Violent People Rise To The Top”

July 12, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A passage about the nature of prisons from Bill James’ new book, Popular Crime, which I previously posted about:

“Build smaller prisons. 

… Large prisons become ‘violentocracies’ — places ruled by violence and by the threat of violence. In a violentocracy, the most violent people rise to the top.  

In any prison of any size, the prisoners are going to be pushed toward the level of the most violent persons in the facility. … In a prison 3,000 people, the entire prison is pushed toward the level of violence created by the five most violent people in the joint. The most violent person finds the second-most violent person and the third-most violent person, and they form an alliance to exploit the weak. Everyone else is compelled to avoid looking weak. … 

Large prisons promote paranoia in the prisoners. You never know who in here is waiting for you with a homemade knife.  

… A prison of 20 people is, by its very nature, extremely different. You know who is in there with you; you know who you have to stay away from. … Plus, if you have many small prisons, you can contain the violent people in a limited number of those prisons, the preventing their violent tendencies from infecting the rest of the prison population.  

… What you would do, with a network of small prisons, would be to place each prisoner in a facility that is appropriate to the threat that he represents. You grade the prisoners on the threat of violence that they represent, one through ten. You put the tens with the tens and the ones with the ones.  

Plus, when you move to a system in which some prisoners have more rights and live in more humane conditions, you create a powerful incentive to get into one of the less restrictive prisons..  

In a large and horrible prison, the new prisoner thinks ‘I’ve got to show everybody here how tough and vicious I really am, so that nobody will mess with me.’ But when you put a new prisoner in a 24-man prison with 23 other tough guys, and he knows that there are other prisons that are not like this, his natural thought is ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to show these people that I am not a crazy, vicious sociopath, so they will move me to some other facility that is not populated by crazy, vicious sociopaths.'” (Thanks iSteve and Marginal Revolution.)

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“It Is Not As If We Walk Through One Doorway And Decide That Murder Is Acceptable. You Have To Walk Through Many Doorways.”

July 6, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Bill James, the statistics outsider who brought sabermetrics to baseball’s mainstream and helped deliver two world championships to a title-starved Boston Red Sox franchise, has an abiding interest that may be even deeper than the National Pastime: crime–why people commit evil deeds and why we’re obsessed with the topic. Chuck Klosterman of Grantland just interviewed James about his new book on the topic, Popular Crime, and they discussed whether everyone is capable of murder. An excerpt:

“OK, so tell me this: In 1984, O.J. Simpson had not (allegedly) killed anyone. But was he already a murderer? Did that capacity to kill already exist within him, a decade before Nicole Brown Simpson was dead?

I think the capacity to commit terrible acts exists in all of us, myself included. I think we could all do things we’d be very ashamed of. I’m sure that capacity was within O.J. in 1984, as it was in myself in 1984.

You’re speaking hypothetically, but I’m curious: What would have to happen in order to make you commit a murder? Can you picture a scenario where you kill someone?

For most of us who are living successful lives, we systematically steer away from those situations. We steer away from those stresses. But, you know … if the kids have to eat and there’s no money in the bank, who knows what you might do? So you try to keep money in the bank. You try to avoid that circumstance. If a woman drives you crazy, you’ll do things that you wouldn’t normally do — so you try to stay away from women who make you crazy. Or drugs: Any one of us can become a drug addict. And once you do, you will kill somebody to get drugs. So maybe that’s the way to think about this: Any real drug addict will kill you in order to get drugs.

Wait — are you suggesting the addiction to cocaine or heroin is greater than whatever internally stops us from committing murder?

Sure. But what I’m really trying to say is that this is probably how we need to think about these types of things: It is not as if we walk through one doorway and decide that murder is acceptable. You have to walk through many doorways. The first doorway leads to a party, where people are doing drugs and having fun. The second doorway leads to more partying. It’s a long, long series of doorways, until you end up in a room where a terrible thing happens. So the question is, ‘How many doorways away are you?’ It’s not a question about a person’s capacity to commit a murder. It’s a question of how many doorways we keep between ourselves and that situation.”

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“I Can Continue To Ratchet Up The Stress Levels And Be The Supergenius…Or I Can Calm Down And Be Satisfied With My Lot”

January 25, 2011 in Excerpts, Sports | Permalink

McCracken discovered that "pitchers have very little control over what happens on balls hit into the field of play." (Image by schwenkenstein01.)

Arizona baseball stats geek Robert “Vörös” McCracken had the kind of idea that can make a career, but he instead watched his life come undone. McCracken was the wunderkind sabermetrician lauded in Moneyball for figuring out a radically different and improved way of ranking pitchers. It made him the next big thing in baseball numbers circles, the heir apparent to Bill James, and landed him a job with the Boston Red Sox. But bipolar disorder and a number of other setbacks led to unemployment, poverty and depression. Jeff Passan profiles McCracken and his current between-innings life in “Sabremetrician in Exile” for The Post Game on Yahoo! Sports. An excerpt:

“He visited a doctor, was diagnosed with a mild case of bipolar disorder and received a prescription for Seroquel, a popular antipsychotic drug that would help him sleep and prevent the ruminations.

‘At some point, if you’re not mentally well, nothing else matters,’ McCracken says. ‘Nothing good happens. You’re forced to make decisions. And because you’re forced, there’s no guarantee they’re the right ones. But they’re decisions you’ve got to make. I can either spend the rest of my life in an institution, or I can change the way I think about what I’m doing with the rest of my life. I can continue to ratchet up the stress levels and be the supergenius who makes millions of dollars, or I can calm down and be satisfied with my lot.’

Satisfaction is an ongoing battle. McCracken gave up baseball for a few years before he starting blogging about it again. The frequency of the posts petered out as his attention moved to soccer, and the demand for employment there exceeded any bites he got in baseball.

McCracken tried. He spoke with Cleveland and San Diego. Nothing materialized. Last year, he was hoping to get a job with the Diamondbacks, whose stadium is less than 30 miles from his home in Surprise, Ariz. Then GM Josh Byrnes was fired, and McCracken never heard from the organization again. He tries to understand why, whether his time with Boston hurt him or his mental illness scares teams off or his appearance — McCracken is significantly overweight – hinders his reputation.

All cop-outs, McCracken says.”

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