Baseball DIY

Every once in a while, I'll flip open a Bill James book and just start reading. Rarely do I quit reading due to lack of interest. It seems unfair that one man can have so many astute insights on just about anything directly and indirectly related to baseball (ie, everything). His book Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? examines, diagnoses, and prescribes a remedy for the ills of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in about 450 pages.

Reading from it today and then keeping my mind busy with the mental residue while mowing the lawn, I realized that one thing I admire in James's work is the implied assertion that everything is knowable. "What makes a baseball player a Hall of Famer?" sits at the right hand of "What is the meaning of life?" at the Table of Questions Designed to Make You Chase Your Own Tail. The easy answer to the question to the question is, "A Hall of Famer is whoever the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) says is a Hall of Famer." This answer, though, leaves an empty spot in the soul, especially when the facial and cranial follicular decisions of certain members of the BBWAA are considered. So you or Bill James ask(s), "What should make a baseball player a Hall of Famer?", which is like asking, "What should the meaning of life be?" All of a sudden, a debate on the merits of Gil Hodges has turned into an investigation into what values, attributes, and abilities are vital to a Hall of Fame career/well-lived life. Good luck getting out of that forest without burning down some trees (which Bill James usually manages to do, though he doesn't always entirely resolve the question at hand).

What I value in James is the attempt to comprehensively understand something that most people would rather ignore or explain away with an easy answer, which is pretty much the same thing.

I just thought I'd share that.

The lawn looks great, by the way.