The New Ballgame: Understanding Baseball Statistics for the Casual Fan (2 page)

A light went on in my head. Here was a guy who was doing with
baseball numbers what I had just spent the last six-plus years
doing with insurance numbers. I really enjoyed analyzing insurance numbers, but I couldn't believe the same thing could be
done with baseball numbers. Sure, the numbers of baseball already existed. In fact, there were already tons of numbers, more
than any other sport. A rich tradition of baseball statistics was
part of the beauty of the sport. I'd been studying them since I attended my first baseball game in 1963 at the age of eight. James,
however, took baseball statistical analysis to a whole new level.
He was going deep into the numbers, just as I was doing every
day in insurance. But he was finding things in those numbers
that no one up until him had a clue could possibly be there. I was
hooked, and I have been addicted ever since. In fact, Bill James
changed the entire trajectory of my life.

I began working with Bill James a few years after that and wound up
changing my career to focus full time on baseball analysis. As much as I
loved tinkering with the numbers of insurance, working with the numbers of
baseball was a dream come true.

Now, I don't expect many people to be as nuts as I am about numbers
and statistics. And I certainly don't expect anyone to quit his or her job to be come a baseball statistical analyst. That is why I was so pleasantly surprised
to read this book by Glenn Guzzo. Here was an explanation of baseball statistics not for people like me or Bill James, but for the "casual fan"-people
just getting into baseball stats, veteran statheads trying to explain to their significant others why they care about stats, and as a gift for kids just becoming
interested in baseball statistics.

Here you will learn why batting average isn't the only-or even the
best-way to judge a hitter. You will learn about the nuances of reading a
boxscore-how you can see the story of the game from its hidden secrets.
You will learn as much as you need-or want-to know about why and how
statistics are kept and, more importantly, how knowing and understanding
statistics can increase your enjoyment of the game.

You don't have to skip the hot dogs and beer. You can still admire the
beautiful fields. You will still hold your breath on that collision at home. But
if you read and digest this book, you will also understand many more of the
moves that take place within a game, and why your team is in last place instead of first, and who should be chosen for the All-Star Game or the Hall of
Fame... and who should not.

So, enjoy baseball any way you want. If the statistics of the game help,
then by all means use them. If they don't, forget about it. Give your copy of
The New Ballgame to someone else!

But, just to show you how the revolution in baseball stats can help you
enjoy baseball even more, I'll give you one last little example.

Remember that first baseball game that I went to with my dad? I wasn't sure exactly when the game was, or how old I was when I went, but I did have
some very specific recollections about it. I knew it was a bat-day doubleheader, that the White Sox were playing the Los Angeles Angels, and that a player
named Leon Wagner beat the Sox in extra innings with a triple.

Because of advances in technology, including the Internet and search
engines, we have access to a lot more information today than we used to, and
it is easier and cheaper and faster to find. Baseball statistics are part of that
new world. There's a wonderful non-profit organization called Retrosheet
that is recording the numbers of baseball by collecting old scoresheets and
computerizing them. I went to their website (www.retrosheet.org) today, and
within 10 minutes I found the exact date of my first baseball game, based on
the little bit of information I had. It was May 12, 1963.

Amazing.

John Dewan

author of The Fielding Bible

tatistics are the language of baseball.

That language is becoming harder to understand every year.

While watching a game on TV or enjoying a conversation about baseball,
it seems to be getting as tough to rely on traditional statistics like batting average, earned run average, and runs batted in as it is to rely solely on English in
Miami. We now have baseball's equivalent of Spanglish, with new terms such
as OPS, WHIP and VORP mixed into sentences with runs, hits and errors.

If you need an interpreter, this book can help. This book is for you if-

0 You have a recently-acquired affection for baseball and need a guiltfree way to get up to speed.

• You have a recently-acquired affection for a baseball fan and want to
understand just what in the world he or she is talking about.

• You have always liked baseball, but have fallen behind on the new
numbers discussed so casually on TV and in the office fantasy baseball leagues.

• Every time you go to a ballgame as a social event you feel like an
outsider, unable to decipher the insider talk around you.

• You are curious about simulation games like Rotisserie (fantasy)
baseball or Strat-O-Matic.

The good news: Most of this stats talk is pretty simple (although if you
like advanced mathematics you can put that to use too) and help is everywhere-in this book, on the Internet, and possibly even in the seat next to
you at the ballpark.

The bad news: There is no way around all this "stats stuff' if you want
to be even moderately literate in baseball.

Sure, you can go to a stadium and savor the sights, sounds, smells and
tastes of the game. Hot dogs sizzling on the grill, freshly mowed outfield
grass greener than you can ever make your own lawn, thrilled crowds roaring
as one voice against a backdrop of red-white-and-blue-all of the Americana
is still there.

But the handwriting-and the numbers-is on the wall if the person
you go to a game with has only thirty seconds for your chatter about how the
kids love that mascot, but three innings for non-stop repartee with a stranger
about game strategy, baseball trivia, and whether any team with Alex Rodriguez will ever win a World Series.

True, the beauty of the game and the majesty of its heroes have inspired
poetry, song, film and theater. But listen to any conversation with baseball fans and you'll hear much less rhapsody about green cathedrals, setting suns,
and the smack of horsehide against oiled leather than raves about the statistical pace Albert Pujols has set in his awesome first six years, or rants about
whether Barry Bonds will hit more home runs than Hank Aaron.

Baseball is more statistically-minded than any other sport, and that accounts for its memorable history. Thanks to their statistical achievements,
yesteryear's players are remembered-and revered-by fans who never saw
them. Numeric milestones achieved generations ago have contemporary value as old records are approached and new ones set. It is impossible to discuss
Barry Bonds' power hitting today without also bringing up Hank Aaron, who
played from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Babe Ruth, who played from the
1910s to the 1930s. Few devoted football fans can cite the record for most career passing yards or rushing yards, but few devoted baseball fans would not
be able to identify Aaron by the number 755 and Ruth by 714-their career
totals for home runs.

Better than the name and number on his jersey, a player's statistics tell
him apart from other players. His statistics define him: Describe one player as
a .300 hitter and you honor him; label him a .250 hitter and you impugn him,
even though the difference is but one hit per week. A 20-game winner is the
designer brand among pitchers; a 10-game winner is generic.

Each generation has deepened baseball's relationship with its statistics.
This is not further evidence that the apocalypse is near, but natural evolution. Statistics gain meaning with time-when Nap Lajoie hit .422 in the first
year of "modern" baseball (1901), no one knew how special that was. When Rogers Hornsby topped that by hitting .424 in 1924, who knew that only two
more men would ever hit even.400? Or that in 2007 we would reach the 66t"
anniversary of the last man to do it? (Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.) With
more history behind us, hindsight makes context and significance clearer.
Better technology reveals more information and gives us more tools with
which to understand history.

Look at the plaques on display in the National Baseball Hall of Fame
and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, for two of the game's greatest players, Ty Cobb and Willie Mays.

TYRUS RAYMOND COBB

Detroit-Philadelphia, AL-1906-1928

Led American League in batting twelve times and created or equaled
more Major League records than any other player Retired with 4,191
Major League hits.

WILLIE HOWARD MAYS, JR.

"The Say Hey Kid"

New York, NL, San Francisco, NL, New York, NL,1951-1973

One of baseball's most colorful and exciting stars. Excelled in all
phases of the game. Third in homers (660), runs (1,062) and total
bases (6,066); seventh in hits (3,283) and RBI's (1,903). First in
putouts by outfielder (7, 095). First to top both 300 homers and 300
steals. Led league in batting once, slugging five times, home runs and
steals four seasons. Voted NL MVP in 1954 and 1965. Played in 24
All-Star games -a record.