Great baseball stat stuff from Joe Posnanski.
Gotta love the national pastime. Baseball is so great that we (me at least) can enjoy reading not only about baseball, and not only about baseball stats, but analysis of the nature of the stats.
As Posnanski says, “This is all just a goofy Batman could beat Superman talk.”
Precisely!
Look: One of the great things about watching and enjoying sports is that there are no rules. You can believe what you want to believe. It’s supposed to be fun. Dan Quisenberry said the best thing about baseball is that there’s no homework … I would add there are no pop quizzes. If you want to believe that baseball is won entirely by heart, that RBIs and wins are the two most important numbers, that defense can be measured best and entirely by what you see, that Jack Morris and not Bert Blyleven belongs in the Hall of Fame, that numbers deaden the sport, you are absolutely entitled — more than entitled, you are empowered to see the game as you want to see it, enjoy it as you want to enjoy it. I’m not sure what you’re doing here, 2,000 or so words into this essay about WAR, but you absolutely should watch all sports for the joy of it. I just hope you’re not running a team I like.
Just read an old article by Michael Lewis about baseball in Cuba. A bit long, but you seem like a guy that would enjoy a long article about a sub-genre of the sport. Having read all the stuff you find on the net, I’d be surprised if you haven’t already read it.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/cuban_baseball200807
Viva beisbol