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Fools Rush Inn: More Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom
In this second collection of recent articles (the first was Solid Fool's Gold), groundbreaking sabermetrician and baseball historian Bill James takes his unique way of looking at the world and applies it to topics as diverse as the major league players who went out on top, whether ground ball pitchers are as good (or as bad) as people think, do hitters like Yasiel Puig have hot hand streaks (they do) and why (that's a different question), and do teams have tough stretches and soft patches in their schedules (they do) and how to mention them. Along the way, James takes several detours to discuss his views on classical music, fiction versus non-fiction, keeping will animals in captivity, conservatives and liberals, and several other things that interest or offend him. He even includes a couple of his favorite old baseball stories and a new way to summarize something's or someone's history in exactly 10-25-50-100-200-500 words.
- GenresBaseball
183 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2012
About the author
Bill James
159 books204 followersGeorge William “Bill” James (born October 5, 1949, in Holton, Kansas) is a 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 (SABR), 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 predecessor to websites using sabermetrics such as Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Primer (now Baseball Think Factory).
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. In 2010, Bill James was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. In 2010, Bill James was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 14, 2020
Bill James is fun to read. Personal opinion, based on his pithy comments on baseball and his use of numbers to wrestle out a story. This collection was more hit and miss. There are a few non-baseball opinion pieces, kind of funny, but kind of the quality of small town newspaper columnist. The baseball pieces are a mix of long, research intensive writeups and shorter baseball stories. James is at his best with the math driven baseball analysis, and my favorite here was his attempt to categorize baseball into different eras. Categorization is something I'm interested in for work, so I found this quite informative. I also appreciated his take on managers in the Hall of Fame and his estimation of the chances of current managers to make it. Fun, but not as much as his earlier collection.
April 24, 2018
He's done better, lots better. From the goofy title and the goofier explanation that it was supposed to be "Pools Rush Inn," this book sometimes doesn't make any sense. Usually, Bill James is all about making sense -- about taking assumptions, or even nonsense, and pulling it apart to understand what is really happening.
As I was reading this book, it occurred to me that Bill James was basically writing blog posts 35 years ago when he started the Baseball Abstract. He wrote pithy, smart, and smart-ass essays on topics that revolved around baseball. That's what a really good blog is, like Five-Thirty-Eight. So the fact that this book is basically a collection of some of his blog material seems like poetic justice to me. And in fact, he makes a point in this book about how publishing has changed from a time when gatekeeper editors at publishing houses decided what would be available for us to read, to the ease of publishing in which we now need editors to sift through the crap and give us what's worthwhile.
James makes other very interesting non-baseball points, too. He asks why people are so upset about a college or even high school coach yelling at his basketball or football players, or giving them a moderate push in the chest, when the very nature of their sport subjects them to much more pushing and yelling at every practice and in every game. He also explains why he doesn't watch TV sitcoms or dramas any more (and his moment of epiphany about it); that the US educational system is probably better than we think; and how utterly immoral our corporate executive pay scales have become.
So, that's the irony of this book. The baseball material is a little tedious, and the non-baseball stuff is pithy and memorable. It's moderately interesting to think about the players who had the best final seasons (for their position), or that we are likely to have more 300-game winners, or what makes a "big game" and therefore a "big-game pitcher." But it's a little tedious to follow all of his lists and sub-lists and break points. For whatever reason, I didn't find it tedious in the 1980s when I first found his Abstracts, but I guess I'm less interested in the minute details and more interested in the narrative these days.
As I was reading this book, it occurred to me that Bill James was basically writing blog posts 35 years ago when he started the Baseball Abstract. He wrote pithy, smart, and smart-ass essays on topics that revolved around baseball. That's what a really good blog is, like Five-Thirty-Eight. So the fact that this book is basically a collection of some of his blog material seems like poetic justice to me. And in fact, he makes a point in this book about how publishing has changed from a time when gatekeeper editors at publishing houses decided what would be available for us to read, to the ease of publishing in which we now need editors to sift through the crap and give us what's worthwhile.
James makes other very interesting non-baseball points, too. He asks why people are so upset about a college or even high school coach yelling at his basketball or football players, or giving them a moderate push in the chest, when the very nature of their sport subjects them to much more pushing and yelling at every practice and in every game. He also explains why he doesn't watch TV sitcoms or dramas any more (and his moment of epiphany about it); that the US educational system is probably better than we think; and how utterly immoral our corporate executive pay scales have become.
So, that's the irony of this book. The baseball material is a little tedious, and the non-baseball stuff is pithy and memorable. It's moderately interesting to think about the players who had the best final seasons (for their position), or that we are likely to have more 300-game winners, or what makes a "big game" and therefore a "big-game pitcher." But it's a little tedious to follow all of his lists and sub-lists and break points. For whatever reason, I didn't find it tedious in the 1980s when I first found his Abstracts, but I guess I'm less interested in the minute details and more interested in the narrative these days.
December 27, 2018
always enjoy and learn from his writing. Slighter than his books that are devised in the first place as books -- this one was compiled and edited from billjamesonline writings and includes some stuff that doesn't much go anywhere or matter -- occasional Andy Rooney-isms such as how he gets irritated by self-check-out in supermarkets [so do I, but I don't much expect anyone else to care].
great baseball analysis as always -- i particularly liked the one about figuring out quantitatively what typifies managers who are elected to the Hall of Fame and therefore how far along some contemporary mangers are to making their case.
great baseball analysis as always -- i particularly liked the one about figuring out quantitatively what typifies managers who are elected to the Hall of Fame and therefore how far along some contemporary mangers are to making their case.
March 7, 2016
Sure, he's by definition a little wonky, but Bill James is just flat-out an enjoyable writer. This is a potpourri of articles/studies he previously published on his subscription website. Despite many, many tables, it's all fun to read.
July 13, 2014
Bill James continues his eclectic ruminations about baseball, with side trips to cover the state of education and political discourse on America.
October 24, 2014
Some good nuggets amongst the various essays, which are not all baseball related.
Good for quick Bill James fix.
Good for quick Bill James fix.
November 24, 2014
Didn't realize I owned this book until I spotted it on one of my shelves. The essays are collected from Bill James Online which is well worth the $3 a month.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews