The Last Book I Read

Way back in 1982, I discovered The Bill James Baseball Abstract, which was a true revelation. I was already a baseball fan, but James turned me into a thinking fan, helping me to make all kinds of connections that ultimately provided a framework for working out problems that far transcended my approach to the national pastime. James introduced me to a couple of key concepts about processing information that ultimately made it possible (maybe inevitable) that I would return to school and successfully pursue postgraduate studies. That's really not an exaggeration: while James is often described as a numbers guy, the reality is that the numbers are only one of the tools employed to try and understand something infinitely complex-- and if you start to see that it is possible, through a reasoned and analytic approach to examining available evidence (and acknowledging that we don't always have all the evidence needed to be conclusive), to make some sense of the ins and outs of baseball, well, then it's a small stretch to apply those same concepts to thinking about history or politics or just about anything. To put it another way, despite all the statistics he employed, I could generally ignore all the metrics and just marvel at how the guy framed questions, worked out his methodology, and came up with answers, all of which was explained in straightforward and colorful language, rich in insight and humor. The Abstracts (and their successors, the annual Baseball Books and later Player Rating Books) were just plain entertaining, even as they promoted the idea of turning things over to examine them from a different angle. Over the years, the annuals came to an end (there is still an annual Baseball Register like compendium of stats, but that's not really the same). More recently, James has continued to produce idiosyncratic essays on a web site (which requires a subscription), and Solid Fool's Gold is an anthology of some of the work produced there. I have to admit, as entertaining as the first couple of essays were, they seemed just a little too oriented towards the numbers, and I wondered if James has lost his touch to transcend the stats. Luckily, that turned out not to be the case; in fact it seemed that the essays got stronger and stronger as I proceeded through the book (a few of which were only tangentially related to baseball at all, such as his analysis of the effectiveness of traffic-light cameras). The essay entitled "Shakespeare and Verlander" is one peak, wherein James speculates on the development of talent, concluding that America today is a lot more interested in promoting athletes than literary giants-- not an earth-shaking conclusion, I grant you, but the way James arrives at it is truly thought provoking. Another essay called "TSA" examines the consequences when competing virtues come into conflict with one another, all in the service of trying to understand the intrusive new measures adopted by airport security forces. Perhaps best of all is the penultimate essay "Battling Expertise With the Power of Ignorance" which is in my view quite brilliant. Here's a representative quote: "What is critical to understanding is humility and cooperation. What is critical to gaining more understanding of the world is to learn to accept and appreciate the vastness of our ignorance, and to understand that one can only survive in a sea of ignorance by working with others to make our small lifeboat a little bit stronger. Only by embracing our limitless ignorance can one position oneself to increase the store of knowledge." Bill James is often pointed to (sometimes derogatorily) as a statistician. What he really is, is a philosopher, and one well worth reading whether you're a baseball fan or not.