Posts tagged as:

Bill James

Baseball Best-Sellers, Nov. 21

November 21, 2014

Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]

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Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]

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Kind sounds like the title for a country-western song, don’t it? Anyway, Rob Neyer as Baseball Nation posted this piece about how prescient Bill James was in an essay in the  2001 edition of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. BN’s Scott Lindholm had published this one a few days earlier.

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Coming down the pike

October 24, 2013

It used to be that you had to wait until spring to enjoy books about the previous season. Now, thanks in part to real-time statistical studies and improved publishing capabilities, it’s just a matter of how fast fast the writer/outlet can get their material to the printer. Case in point: the The Bill James Handbook, […]

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Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times commemorates the occasion. I remember the first time I saw the book, sitting on a table at a Barnes and Noble on East 86th Street near Third Avenue. It was like at first sight. I must admit, it was one of those books that I didn’t read read. Must […]

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Before he began working with an actual publisher, James used to type out The  Baseball Analyst on a bi-monthly basis and make copies as needed for distribution. How times have changed. Like SABR’s annual publications, The National Pastime and Baseball Research Journal, the Analysts were contributor-driven. The first issue contains articles such as “Ballpark Effects […]

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TWIBB: March 18, 2011

March 18, 2011 · 2 comments

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, March 18, at 4 p.m. Title Rank General Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, by John Thorn 1 The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First, by Jonah Keri […]

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Baseball Past and Present offers this list of 10 favorites baseball titles, only a couple of which might surprise. Fenway West, a Red Sox (duh)-centric blog, posted this review of Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2%. Upshot: “Move over Moneyball, there is a new addition to the business of baseball library.” There’s also a feature on […]

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TWIBB: March 4, 2011

March 4, 2011

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Feb 25, at 1:30 p.m. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2011 1 Baseball America 2011 Prospect Handbook: The 2011 Expert Guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis (Kindle version) 3 Moneyball: The […]

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I can’t remember so much chatter on the web about the selections for the Hall of Fame as this year, both before the elections were held and after Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were voted in. Most are all about comparisons: why Player A should be in, especially if similar Player B was elected. The […]

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The father of sabermetrics, Bill James, will play himself on an episode of The Simpsons this fall, according to the OnTheRedCarpet website. I’m guessing he’ll be on for all of three minutes, but Big League Stew, a Yahoo sports blog, has some suggestions on how to beef up the “role.” • As a favor to Mr. […]

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Knowing I would have a lot of down time during my recent Jamaica trip, I loaded up on the baseball books, no small feat since I was only taking a carry on and a Jack Bauer bag. Among the titles: the new Roger Maris bio by Calvin and Peary; Baseball America Prospect Handbook 2010; Fay […]

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My apologies for falling way behind. Still basking in my post-Yankee fantasy camp experience, which you will be able to read about in the pages of the New Jersey Jewish News in the next week or so, as well as Broadside Bombers next year. So without further ado: Ron Shandler, who publishes the popular Baseball […]

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Up on the roof…well, the attic actually. I was going through some stuff, trying to decide whether it’s time to lighten the load, so to speak. I hve a bunch of Sports, Inside Sports, Baseball Quarterly, and other assorted titles, long gone from this mortal coil. This one caught my eye: The July 1986 issue […]

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* Party question

September 10, 2009 · 2 comments

To break the ice at parties, some hosts might engage their guests in some questions, such as “Which character, real or fictional, would you enjoy having a dinner conversation with?” For many baseball fans, it might be Bill James, as Joe Posnanski, late of the Kansas City Star and new to SI.com, does in this […]

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According to Bill James, those science fiction books we’ve read for generations about “building” superior humans is never far from he truth. In this blog entry by Dan Steinberg on The Sporting News website, James opines that “steroids serve the function of prolonging youth, that fighting aging and death has been one of civilization’s greatest […]

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Joe Posnanski’s great column on SI.com about which statistics are the best indicators of baseball talent reminded me that I was going to do a review of the 2009 Bill James Handbook. I must admit, I don’t make a habit of reading books of this type. I always enjoyed the Total Baseball books or the […]

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