The Bill James Baseball Abstract, 1986

by Bill James

1986 BILL JAMES SOFTCOVER

Genres: Sports, Baseball, Nonfiction, Reference

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

George 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

Reviews

[Tom Stamper · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a teenager I would sit on the floor in Walden Book Store and read these abstracts. I couldn't afford to buy any. My parents didn't believe in allowances and by the time Christmas came around these were out-of-date in my thinking. The publisher must have thought so too because they were printed on the cheap paper. The vintage copy I just purchased from Amazon is yellowing like a pulp novel. The funny thing is that content is actually pretty timeless even if it was intended as an exploration of baseball at a very specific time. Bill James teaches you to think about baseball and analyze it in a way that the sports media often misses. When these books were written he was a minority voice, but even with the popularity of Moneyball his thinking is still not ubiquitous in sports media or in the broadcast booth. While most serious fans have already accepted that classic stats like Wins for pitchers or RBI for hitters are somewhat superficial those kinds of stats still dominate Fantasy Leagues. Way back in the 1980s Bill is asking questions as to what kinds of teams play better on artificial turf, do hitters go into streaks or slumps, are stolen bases overrated, and is clutch hitting a real thing. He then comes up with a formula for studying those questions the best he can with the information he is given.

He covers each of the MLB teams with essays, some of which deal with the specific team and others where the team is tangentially related to the research. He spends the St. Louis Cardinals section explaining why losing Bruce Sutter was no big deal and gaining Vince Coleman was no big deal either. These were the two stories that dominated the media coverage of the team and James explains why they missed the big story.

The longest essay is on the Kansas City Royals. They won the world series the year before and they are Bill James hometown team and he attended every game. He explains why they were better in most measurable categories to the losing Cardinals despite the media's insistence of the opposite. The umpires blew a call in Game 6 that cost the Cardinals, but in James's view that was just evening out other luck that the Cardinals had on their side. But the essay also goes beyond just this world series and to how the Royals were built through the years. If you were going to compile a list of the best sports writing of the 1980s this essay would be a natural.

I wish the publisher would release the old editions in Kindle format at a cheap price. These would be great to read from the beginning. Bill James has gone on to some great work, but it's a shame that it's at the cost of annual books like these.

[Hatuxka · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome stunning revelation on how to look at Baseball-started a revolution (unless I am referring to an earlier edition) Yes, they were encyclopedic, but I am sure I wasn't the only one who read his books in these years cover-to-cover

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

These original Baseball Abstracts were absolutely groundbreaking. I've always loved baseball, but these yearly abstracts (only a handful were produced for wider publication) really pushed the game forward for me and many others. They really started a revolution in the way that baseball success was measured, long before Michael Lewis made it more mainstream with Moneyball. James made his concepts so easy to understand and fun to read.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill James, as only he can, has written one of the definitive baseball books. The book is split into an examination of the game broken out into decades, and a section on the best players, by position, in the game.

Fascinating stuff, as James gives glimpses of how baseball was played in the past, and the players playing in it.

Even though this book is superceded by the equally good, "The New Bill James Baseball Abstract", it has plenty of meat to offer that is different than the newer book.

A classic I've read many times.

[Russ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Changed the way I think about the great sport of baseball. Actually, changed the way the entire sports world thinks about baseball. Introduced the world to sabremetrics, an advances statistical methodology for understanding baseball excellence.

(an aside, Bill James, the author, brought his expertise to the 2004 Red Sox, and, in some small way, made them into the World Series champions that year).

[Gary Geiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

These early Abstracts were a gateway drug of sorts for me; esp the 1985 one.