University Daily Kansan, December 5, 1984
CAMPUS AND AREA
Page 9
KU graduate explains baseball for fun and profit
By DAVE GILES Staff Reporter
It is just past 2 p.m. and Bill James is in his work clothes - a tattered red bathrobe and blue jeans - taking notes from the box scores in the sports section of USA Today.
Sitting in the dimly lit den of his home in Winchester, about 30 miles north of Lawrence, James assesses the performances and tallies the statistics that will help him produce another edition of the Bill James Baseball Abstract.
"I am an observable baseball fan," he says. "My baseball abstract uses concepts and numbers that aren't familiar to people. Therefore, because I have to explain my formulas and analyses, the book contains more
words than the conventional baseball digest."
JAMES LEARNED BOTH words and formulas as an English and economics major at the University of Kansas in the early 1970s.
After graduating in 1972, James taught eight years for baseball Digest or For Baseball Digest.
"In college, I always used the economic formulas to analyze base-
In 1977, while working as a night watchman, he published the first edition of his baseball abstract with the help of a photocopier. He advertised the 68-page abstract in sports magazines and sold 70 copies.
Since then, he has written six more editions and sold more than 150,000
James' book includes an evaluation of major league teams and a
ranking of players according to their performance during the past two years. Along with the statistics, the players comments about teams and players.
The much-maligned Cleveland Indians have been one of James favorite targets.
"THEY SHOULD CHANGE their name to the Cleveland Blahs."
singer (Jerry Vale) and a blah actor and actress (Robert Wagner and Lois Nettleton), a blah politician (Thomas McGraw), and a blah baillancer, a blah baillancer out of the past."
In a recent edition of his book, he wrote of Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson. "If you listen to the players on the field, you see of defensive positioning in baseball.
'The common theory is that it is all right to study baseball as long as you don't become intelligent about it. Once you become serious about it, people think you are wasting your time.'
Bill James, baseball expert
it is obvious that he knows as much about where a hitter is likely to hit the ball as he knows about the ovulation cycle of an orangutan."
Such comments do not pass unnoticed. In a recent Kansas City Times column, Anderson called Mr. Reagan a "man of no knowledge of anything at all."
His primary research sources are USA Today, The Sporting News Baseball Guide and Sports Encyclopedia of Baseball.
James wrote "They'd probably sue by the Blah Association and have to have a Blah Appreciation Day to settle the case, bring a blah
IN ADDITION TO THE 1985 abstract, James is writing a historical abstract of baseball and is under contract to write at least two more
James, a life-time baseball fan, said the quality of the game had improved since he listened to games on the radio as a boy.
"One reason for the improvement is the increase in player salaries," he said. "The more a player gets paid, the larger the incentive is to train during the off-season. The more a player trains, the better he performs.
The better he performs, the more he gets paid. So, higher salaries have a big impact on the game.
"Ten years ago, players used to go to training camp to get in shape. Now, they go to spring training already in shape."
James said he wasn't bothered by the fact that his job might seem like a hobby to most people.
"Just because baseball isn't scholarly doesn't mean it doesn't take intelligence to interpret it," he said.
"The common theory is that it is all right to study baseball as long as you don't become intelligent about it. Once you become serious about it, people think you are wasting your time.
"But, there are intelligent things to be said about sports. They are important to a lot of people. It is entertainment, an escape."
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December 6,1984
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