Sunday, October 22, 2006

Its that time again

Book review. This month's entry - The Mind of Bill James or How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball.

After my last reivew, I vowed that I would no longer read almost every baseball book that came along. And I was tempted to ignore this book as well. I had a feeling that the book would try to give Bill James credit for everything from Sabermetrics, to Billy Beane and Moneyball, to the 3 run Home Run. But it turned out to be a solid look at the life and work of Bill James. In fact there was a lot of effort to debunk that James was responsible for creating focus on a number of items.

There also was quite a bit written about James that was unflattering. Nothing in particular worth mentioning, just that he can be a bit grumpy.

No real specifics to get into. A solid book.

6 comments:

  1. RIP Little Man

    http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2635348

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  2. I don't watch much TV other than baseball and when I do it is on TIVO and I FF through commercials, so my wife raises a good point when she asks "Why are they showing a commercial telling you to watch the playoffs while you are watching the playoffs?"

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  3. X, that sounds like a Catch 22.....quirky nonsense on Fox. We're used to it by now.

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  4. I think it has less to do with the need to advertise as it does with the fact that they couldn't sell all of their slots so they needed fill.

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  5. Either way - it is stupid. I would think Fox would be more inclined to advertise Prison Break or Whose your Mommy.

    Which reminds on another front - why the hell are they using Ellen Degeneres in an ad for AMEX during the World Series? Geniuses.

    And what is going on with 24? No ads? No new season? I know they have a new season coming up.

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  6. Really: no new shows to overexpose? No Prison Break (2005)? No House (2004)? No Skin (2003)? Poor Bill Simmons has nothing to write about!

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