Take Me Cut to the Numbers Game

IF SEEING ENOS CABELL'S name in a box score for the first time this year didn't set your heart aflutter, then you probably haven't read any of the Bill James Baseball Abstracts. If you don't know who Enos Cabell is, then you don't want to read any further.

If you're still reading and really don't anything bout Mr. Cabell, strap yourself in a dizzying and perhaps terrifying look at the seamy underside of baseball fanaticism--sabremetrics.

Sabremetrics combines the acronym for the Society for American Baseball Research, "SABRE," with "metrics," the study of numbers. Moreover, sabremetrics is the use of statistical analysis to shed additional light on baseball in an attempt better to comprehend the principles that guide the game.

To be honest If don't like math that much, and the Abstract, though it calls itself a great statistical undertaking, isn't really that at all. The book celebrates baseball and the obsession that some of us have with it, and does it with unusual wit and intelligence.

When Enos Cabell was hot early in the year, you'd ask Sparky Anderson about him and Sparky would say "Enos Cabell is a we ballplayer. You don't hear Enos Cabell saying 'I did this' and 'I did that.'" I think that's what drives me nuts about Sparky Anderson, that he's so full of brown stuff that it doesn't seem like he has nay words left over for a basic fundamental understanding of the game. I want to look as a player on the basis of what, specifically, he can and cannot do to help you win a baseball game, but Sparky's to full of "winners" and Sparky's so full of "winners" and "discipline" and "we ballplayers" and self-consciously asinine theories about baseball that he seems to have no concept of how baseball games are won and loss. I mean, I would never say that it was not important to have a team with a good attitude but Christ, Sparky, there are millions of people in this country who have good attitudes, but there are only about 200 who can play a major-league brand of baseball, so which are you going to take? Sparky is so focused on all the attitude stuff that he looks at an Enos Cabell and he doesn't even see that the man can't play baseball. This we ballplayer, Sparky, can't play first, can't play third, can't hit, can't run and can't throw. So who cares what his attitude is? --Abstract 1963

That's James at his most self-righteous, assaulting what he sees as gross stupidity in the game James's strength, beyond his consistently sharp writing, is an uncanny ability to share a fresh perspective on a game so often smothered with cliches and not-so-true truisms.

In his latter book, James debunks the motion that you can't tell anything from minor league statistics. He proves conclusively that you can predict, within a reasonable degree of accuracy, how well a rookie is going to hit in the major leagues based on his past performance in AA and AAA.

It's a starting revelation, if it's true--and given James' track record, it probably is.

In fact, the only problem with the Abstract is his remarkable track record. This is the fourth edition that has been marketed nation-wide, and James is starting to run a little low on the scintillating remarks. As he admits at the end, he always wants to tell his readers something they don't already know, and some of us--the James faithful, so to speak--already know an awful lot.

This year's edition dives further into the arcanery of the game and might just have lost a little of the irreverence that characterized earlier editions. The Bill James who once said. "Reitz, as you probably know, is slower than a lot of dead people" and tagged Bob Bailor a "Futility Player" in his player evaluations has grown a little older and little wiser--and maybe a bit duller, too.

But if The New York Times Times bestseller list has taken its toll on America's favorite baseball guru and shackled him with a little more restraint, don't worry: there's plenty left here that's fresh and invigorating.

James remembers when his sixth-grade teacher had a talk with him about wasting time with baseball statistics.

"William," he would say, "you're a bright a enough little kid. "You've got lots of charm and poise, and you're well regarded as a leader around here. You hold your liquor fairly well and haven't wet your pants during school hours all week. So what's this crappola about the baseball statistics?"

Lucky for us, that sixth-grade teacher didn't stop little William from doing what he does better than anyone else Say Hey.

After you spend weeks calling the bookstores, after the Abstract finally arrives and you sit up for 27 hours devouring its every word, it's time to take stock of some the other new arrivals on the baseball shelf t the local bookstore.

This year, there is a fascinating offering from the people at the Elias Sports Bureau, that murky organization charged with compiling the official statistics for everything.

National Bocce League, United States Curling Association, Major League Tiddlywinks, you name it--Elias keeps their numbers for them.

Elias is also the official statistical consultant to major league baseball and reveals its "secret files" in the Analyst. For the hardcore baseball fan, information is dynamite and should be treated as such.

The overwhelming wealth of statistical information on the volume is potentially debilitating--there is enough here to keep you from ever putting to down and going to bed.

James presents a finite amount of statistical information in the Abstract, since most of the book is prose. The Analyst is mostly numbers and places a multitude of fascinating facts at the fingertips of the enterprising reader.

Dan Petry shuts down John Castino (.048, 1-for-21), but gets shelled by George Vukovich (.571, 8-for-14, 4-HR). The Twins were 53-48 with Houston Jimenez starting at short.

Everything is here. Stats that you never dreamed existed are here and in profusion: batting vs, left- and righthanded pitcher, with runners on base, with the bases empty, in late inning pressure situations, on grass, on turf, at home, on the road, with runners in scoring position, runners in scoring position and two outs, leading off innings and runners on third with less than twoOuts, in each months, etc.

The Analyst has the record of every team by players starting at different positions--Yankees 15-11 with Ken Griffey at first, 20-14 with him in left, 16-18 in center, 3-3 in right and 1-2 as a leadoff hitter. It also rates each player in the league number of categories and you learn that Argens Salazar was 134th and last in the National League in batting average (including a several .089 during the day), slugging average, on-base percentage and home-run percentage: that he was second to last in walk percentage and seventh from the bottom in strikeout percentage.

The Analyst is well-laid out and easy to manage, despite the brute intensity of its information.

The writing is also brutish, however. Although the authors keep their write-ups on the teams mercifully brief, one does get an opportunity to sample some truly pathetic prose.

Despite some dense, ugly passages, many of America's foremost baseball writers, including the incomparable Thomas Bowell of The Washington Post, have praised the Analyst to the highest heavens.

It is an incomparable tool for the season. After the box scores begin to pile up and the pitching rotations start to whirl around, the Abstract gets laid aside until the off-season, as you concentrate on the season at hand. The Analyst, on the other hand, is a book that will be at your side all summer long, helping decipher every single game in a way.

Baseball statistics are a wonderful thing; they speak with a richness that no other sport can match. Football doesn't have .235 hitters.

After opening this book, you'll really want to know how that .235 hiter fared in late inning pressure situations or on turf or with runers on third and less than two outs or...