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How Bill James Changed Our View of the Game of Baseball Hardcover – March 1, 2007

by Rob Neyer (Author), Alan Schwarz (Author), Gregory F. Augustine Pierce (Editor)

3.6 11 ratings

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Since self-publishing his revolutionary Baseball Abstracts over 25 years ago, Bill James has changed the way that baseball insiders, professionals and fans look at baseball ? and not always for the better, according to some. Recently named to Time magazine's ?100 People Who Shape Our World, ? his influence has been recognized the world over. This book is a collection of essays from baseball insiders on what Bill James has meant to them and what they each see as his biggest influence on the game of baseball.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ ACTA Publications; First Edition (March 1, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 139 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0879463171
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0879463175
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.38 x 0.6 x 8.22 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,186,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,550 in Baseball (Books)

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3.6 11 ratings

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William Abrams

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2015

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A little repetitive but very interesting.

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Richard L. Goldfarb

A Slim But Important Volume

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2007

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My favorite Bill James insight has absolutely nothing to do with baseball. It was in the Abstract the year he bought a computer, and the insight was that computers are incredibly dumb. He would type things the way he always had, and then make one mistake and the computer would execute that mistake as perfectly as it had all his correct commands, and he wondered why the computer couldn't learn. And although computers can, in certain instances, learn (which is why Google will suggest that your search was different from the one you misspelled, for instance), they have gotten, in my opinion, even dumber, as you can get a message that is in perfect gibberish that you have to accept or cancel, and you have no idea what it is. Microsoft Word will still prompt me to use "Paste Special" to make something into HTML even though every one of the million times I've used it, I used it to make unformatted text. And everytime computers are dumb, I think of Bill James and his wisdom 20 years ago about computers.

Today, if there were a new Bill James, a community of Bill James lovers would grow up instantly though MySpace pages and the like. There would be a Bill James Web Ring of fan sites and everyone would know everyone else was out there. But for those of us, like the contributors to this book, who were experiencing the Abstracts in real time (I bought the 1982 Abstract at Waldenbooks; I can remember the day), we were all discovering this really good writer who had insights into baseball and into life that we could use in everything else we did. As the books shows, some of them turned out to become engineers as well as sportswriters. I use James's insights and methodologies in my law practice (don't tell my clients).

And it's reading those stories of how each writer came across James and used James and took his lessons to heart and benefited from it that are at the heart of this book. It could have been longer, but every essay in it is interesting and thoughtful. Some criticize James for some things (which would please him) and some get him wrong (which wouldn't surprise him), but the general sense is that this is a labor of love for people just like me for whom the insight has been life-altering without once needing to enter any place more intimidating or serious than what Bull Durham called the church of baseball.

8 people found this helpful

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WDX2BB

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Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2012

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Here's an odd little book, with the emphasis on little.

If you don't know who Bill James is, you haven't been paying attention. The baseball writer and current consultant to the Boston Red Sox started something of a revolution in statistical analysis in his favorite sport. His Baseball Abstracts, which were issued from 1977 to 1986, were gobbled up by a group of fans who weren't afraid to see the game in a different way.

Those fans have gone on into other parts of their lives, of course, but they still consider James as an influential part of their lives.

Gregory F. Augustine Pierce has collected some of their thoughts about James in "How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball." The title is pretty descriptive of the material.

Pierce has compiled contributions from 12 writers in the form of essays about James' work. They vary from writers to analysts to a basketball executive (Daryl Morey, then assistant general manager of the NBA's Houston Rockets). Short notes from fans are also sprinkled in the text.

Most of the essays are very, very similar. James had the type of personality to question what he saw on the baseball field and not accept convention wisdom at face value. If anythiing, the people who read him learned that characteristic. The biggest problem with the book, then, is that the essays tend to sound alike after a while. The word "disciples" came to mind while reading this, and that may only overstate the case a bit.

The one exception might be from James' wife, Susan McCarthy. She's written essays before for James' books and always come off well. Obviously, the reader of this book gets a different perspective on how someone learned to watch baseball from James' wife than from any other source.

At least this book isn't 250 pages of tributes that sound alike. Still, this is mighty easy reading. At 136 pages of text in a 6.25 X 8.5 book, this goes by very quickly. It took me a little more than an hour to get through it. That's not much reading for $19.95

There's little doubt that Bill James is headed for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown some day. No other baseball writer would have a book like this written about him. Still, this is a little too unsubstantial for most tastes, particularly at this price. A trip to the library is definitely in order if you are at all curious about the book.

2 people found this helpful

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D. McSpadden

High Hopes. . .but just okay. . .

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2007

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I've been a big fan of Bill James and have longed for a critical review of his work. Doing that probably wasn't the intent of this book, but what we get is somewhat disappointing. It reads like there are 11 different writers contributing forewords to the next Bill James book. . .but then, there is no book. Granted, each of these writers are accomplished in their own rights and they are probably saving really good stuff for their own books.

Some of the best stuff is from Hal Richman (founder and CEO of Stratomatic)who mixes his contribution with praise for James, as well as noting the difficulties he has had with examining defense. Daryl Morey, the assistant GM for the Houston Rockets, writes about how he has tried to apply some of James' ideas to basketball. I also enjoyed Ron Shandler's chapter on Fantasy Baseball, but I would disagreed with some of his observations. Bill James may not have embraced fantasy baseball as much as some people think he should, but he hasn't disdained it either.

I was also disappointed with Neyer's contribution. Neyer, no doubt, has plenty of anecdotes he could share about James. He only shares a couple, but I am sure there are some great ones where he and James clashed over some analysis or conclusion. Those are the stories I want to hear about.

So, all in all, it's okay. I would only recommend it to the die hard Bill James fans.

23 people found this helpful

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How Bill James Changed Our View of the Game of Baseball Hardcover – March 1, 2007

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