Baseball Research Journal 1980 edited by Bob Davids: a review

The 1980 BRJ, like most editions, is now available on SABR’s website.

This is the strongest Baseball Research Journal edition yet. It features one of the classic works of sabermetric analysis, some excellent biographical portraits, a look at minor league umpiring practice in 1900, a glimpse at the 1880 opening of the original Polo Grounds, some analysis of why Fulton County Stadium was a launching pad, and an interview with Joe Oeschger about the longest major league game and other memories. Authors included Stew Thornley, Seymour Siwoff(!), David Smith, Ted DiTullio, and Richard Cramer. This issue has, of course, some variations in quality, but there’s really nothing you could fairly characterize as filler in this edition.

The classic sabermetric piece is Dick Cramer’s “Average Batting Skill Through Major League History,” which uses a moving average based on Cramer’s Batter Win Average (BWA) statistic (discussed in the 1977 BRJ) in an attempt to discover whether player performance has increased or decreased over time. I’d read this piece before, and been concerned about Cramer’s treatment of outliers, but this re-read has convinced me that he handled my concerns adequately. There is room for some quibbling, of course, but his basic point–that the talent level of major league players has increased substantially over the years, and that it continues to increase–is well argued and well supported by his data. This article is often cited as an important early analytical effort, which it is; someone should apply modern methodologies to the question and see how things hold up.

The early chapters of the 1980 edition are devoted to the post-playing careers of Billy Sunday (by Robert Muhlbach), Alfred W. Lawson (Lyell Henry), and Frank W. Olin (Tom Hufford). Henry’s Lawson piece is particularly interesting.

A number of events are commemorated in this journal, including The Last Tripleheader (A.D. Suehsdorf), a 1880 night game between two department store teams (Oscar Eddleton), and the Polo Grounds opening mentioned above (John J. O’Malley). Seasons considered include Joe Bauman’s 72 HR campaign (Bart Ripp) and the 1884 St. Paul Unions (Stew Thornley–I think his first SABR publication). Biographical treatments, besides those mentioned above, included Negro Leaguer Cannonball Dick Redding (John Holway) and nineteenth century star Jim Sheckard (Gregg Dubbs). There’s also a cute little piece on Rube Waddell playing college ball, writen by Harold Esch.

More or less sabermertic pieces, besides Cramer’s effort, included Seymour Siwoff’s accounting of some previously-undiscovered RBI records, David Smith on stolen bases (using Maury Wills data–and evidently Smith’s first SABR pub), and John Schwartz’ look at Intentional Walks.

Robert Kingsley’s look at Atlanta home run rates and Richard Burtt’s similar look at Pittsburgh triple rates both seem inadequat, as both explicitly discount what seem to be obvious causes (altitude in the Atlanta case, field dimensions in the Pittsburgh case). I think this is partly a case of we better understand these dynamics nowadays, and partly willful blindness on the authors’ parts.

There are, of course, the usual array of lists-with-explanatory-paragraphs; I shan’t list them here. Al Kermisch’s Researchers Notebook looked, among other things, at a postponed game in the 1918 World Series, Silver King’s no hitter, the 1889 Louisville player’s strike, and a recording error in Harry Schafer’s fielding records. Along the same lines was Arthur Ahrens attempt to pin down a story about an oft-misreported Bill Lange catch–Lange supposedly went through the outfield fence. Ahrens offers a plausible reconstruction which suggests that a couple odd incidents in a single game got garbled as folks retold the story.

So there’s some biography, some excellent historical work, a couple minor league pieces, and a key analytical piece. Something for every SABR audience.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.

Revision History:

Pioneer History of Eaton County by Daniel Strange: a review

This book’s subtitle begins “OR the story of the last to lead the simple life…” and goes on for several lines demonstrating that pioneer life was, well, different, if not simple. The subtitle ends: “…Who gave us, their coming sons, their lives, their loves, their labors.” (I rather like that.)

Everyone should read a county history sometime. This one’s structured around identifying the first settlers in each Eaton County (Michigan) township, and how they arrived in the county; he also discusses early township leaders, school beginnings, and suchlike. There are also stories, digressions, and the occasional poem. A few of the stories are repeated, but in each case the perspective’s changed and the tale with it. All in all, an interesting diversion, especially if you’ve Eaton County connections. The potentially dry material is relieved by the author’s wry humor–he’s particularly amused by conflicting claims about the meaning of “first settler.”

The book’s impeccably researched; Strange clearly consulted land office records, county and township archives, memoirs authored by the early settlers, and news accounts. He spent his life teaching in local institutions, and seems to have known most of the county’s early residents.

This ebook, retrieved from the Internet Archive, is based on a Google Scan and has the usual spelling and formatting errors. I’ve seen worse.

A certainly-unimportant note: I notice Strange calls Mulliken’s founder T. Edgar Potter, which supports my impression that folks called Mr. Potter “Ed.”









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.

Revision History:

Northern Michigan Asylum by William A Decker: a review

This is Dr. Decker’s followup to Asylum for the Insane, his book about the Kalamazoo State Hospital. This book examines the history of the Traverse City asylum, and makes some effort to put it into context.

This book’s better than the Kalamazoo book. There’s less emphasis on buildings, for one thing, and the author does a far better job of identifying and describing the political context which led to the construction of Michigan’s state hospitals and in which their staff members worked. The improvements seem to stem largely from two circumstances–Decker had learned not to repeat some of his first book’s mistakes, and he didn’t know this material nearly as well as he knew the Kalamazoo history.

That lack of familiarity cuts both ways, of course. Because his sources for this book are heavily concentrated in the early twentieth century and the 1970s, those periods get more attention than they probably deserve. Moreover, the research-material gaps occasionally result in speculative reconstruction of matters one might have preferred to see documented. On the other hand, his inability to fill in all the missing details freed up room for discussion of the changing political environment, something he handles surprisingly deftly and objectively. All in all, this book has a better arrangement than the earlier volume.

As with the original volume, this book’s chapters devoted to treatment are surprisingly interesting, and justify the book’s existence. This is clearly material the author’s known and pondered upon for his entire adult life.

Despite the improvements, this effort shares many of the Kalamazoo book’s weaknesses. There’s an annoying amount of repetition. There are unexplained issues just taken for granted–for instance, the apparently-inexplicable numbering system imposed on the campus buildings is not adequately discussed. And two late chapters are just unstructured fragments which add little or no value.

This book ends with an argument that the decisions behind the 1970s restructuring of the state’s mental health programs–in particular, the near-total deinstitutionalization of those efforts–was a poorly-considered mistake. There’s a similar chapter at the end of his first book, but this effort is more explicit.

I’m hoping his third volume–on the Newberry facility–discusses the strengths and weaknesses, and successes and failures, of Michigan’s state hospitals. Decker’s clearly got the data–and the knowledge–to present that information. I’d really like to see it.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.




Revision History:

Joel’s Lansing Lugnut Notes: an introduction

Although blogs hadn’t yet been invented, seventeen years ago I kept a Lansing Lugnuts weblog, which I called Joel’s Lansing Lugnut Notes. The 1996 Luggies were a new team. I began keeping the online journal because I’d been watching Midwest League (MWL) play for several summers and figured I had something to contribute to the Lansing discussion. As things worked out I did a writeup after each series, and composed a few other pages as inspiration struck. I plan to repost all of the weblog entries, and most of the other pages, to this journal over the next few months. Most will be posted 17 years to the day after they were originally written.

My MWL website, A Fan’s Guide to the Midwest League, was a spinoff from my Luggie journal. I’ve discussed this transition elsewhere on this blog, and will doubtless do so again.

Our Main Characters

Lansing’s team was (and remains) owned by the Chicago-based husband-and-wife team of Tom Dickson and Sherrie Myers. They’d purchased the Waterloo, Iowa, team after the 1993 season and moved it to Springfield, Illinois, when lease negotiations with the Waterloo city fathers broke down. This occurred shortly before play began in ’94. Early in 1995 they committed to move the team to Lansing, and we’d all been impatiently waiting for the team’s arrival.

In 1996 the Lugnuts’ general manager was Jim Weigel. The team’s on-field host was Jason Colthorp, and Mike VanderWood (note the spelling change) was the Luggies’ radio voice

The original Lugnut team was a Kansas City Royals affiliate. The Royals assigned Brian Poldberg, a minor league lifer, to manage the team. Poldberg was assisted by hitting coach Curtis Wilkerson and pitching coach Mike Moore, both of whom were former major league players. Jeff Stevenson was the trainer.

Forty young players appeared on the field during Lansing’s team’s inaugural season. Seven of those players–Carlos Beltran, Carlos Febles, Kevin Hodges, Mark Quinn, Jose Santiago, Matt Treanor, and Jeff Wallace–eventually appeared in the majors. Wallace was quickest to the bigs, but was soon injured and nearly as soon forgotten. Beltran, of course, is nearing the end of what may be a Hall of Fame career, but played only briefly in Lansing. Treanor was still catching in 2012, though his prospects for playing this summer appear slim. But my story’s as much about the other guys, all of whom will be able to tell their grandkids they played professional ball.

I will, of course, also mention (and sometimes discuss) other 1996 Midwest League players as their (remembered) teams pass through Olds Park. In retrospect the big names were David Ortiz (Big Papi was going by Arias, not Ortiz, in 1996) and A.J. Pierzynski. In 1996, of course, it was by no means clear who would become major league stars. Frankly, I didn’t care. I still don’t, for that matter.

My Plan

Since I’m already a few entries behind, I plan to catch up to today-seventeen-years-back over the next few days. Thereafter I plan to post entries in time-delayed real time. I expect to post most of those exactly as I originally wrote them, even when I said something obviously stupid (I’ll likely add some hyperlinks–and either delete or fix some broken links). It’s also likely that I’ll add some commentary in each entry’s first comment.

How I plan to publicize postings:

  • I’ll list new entries in the first comment on this page. You could bookmark it, and check from time to time.
  • You could bookmark this Lugnuts Notes directory page, and occasionally check there for new listings. The difference between this option and the “comment” option is the descriptions.
  • I’ll create link-back pages on this blog pointing to the new (back-dated) entry every time I post something. The link-back pages will be temporary, as I plan to delete each as the next link-back is posted.
  • I’ll mention the new entries on Facebook, which of course will only notify my FB friends. I’ll do the same on my Google+ page, which is a bit more public.
  • I’ll mention the new entries on my Twitter feed.

I expect this to be fun, and I’m looking forward to the feedback. Thanks for reading.

Revision History:

Enemies, a Love Story by Josh Schollmeyer: a short review

This is a skinny little book consisting entirely of quotations from other people about Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, or (most commonly) the both of them. It begins by describing their newspaper rivalry, then their show’s tentative beginnings and subsequent history. Siskel’s illness and death are considered, as is Ebert’s cancer.

This is nicely done, as Schollmeyer’s got a good sense of how to assemble a story from what seem to be interview responses. It’s not really a history of the show, but more a portrait of the relationship, and how that affected the show.

Be sure to read the footnotes.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.

Revision History:

Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Stat Book (1988) edited by Don Zminda and Project Scoresheet

My review of the first book in this series set attracted a note from Geoff Beckman, who helped edit both editions. It would likely be worth your while to read Geoff’s comments before reading on….

Geoff considers this the weaker volume, and on the whole he’s right, as it lacks the zing of the initial edition. There were 338 player essays (up from 240), but on the whole they’re less interesting. Too many read like spring training player profiles, emphasizing the player’s tools and potentials while downplaying his demonstrated weaknesses. This is not meant to imply that the essays are all bad. For instance, principal editor Zminda portrayed a stubborn and still-valuable Carlton Fisk on a Chicago team that didn’t much like him. Craig Wright’s commentary on Bret Saberhagen gives clues about the value Wright provided the Rangers as an early professional sabermetrician. Beckman’s own Mel Hall essay used six methods to frame Hall’s value and is absolutely delightful. Mike Kopf made an effort to get into Bo Jackson’s head. And Susan Nelson offered a fine look at Dennis Eckersley in transition from starter to reliever.

Nelson’s Eck portrait, in fact, illustrates the book’s unplanned theme: In 1987 baseball’s pitcher usage was in transition as most managers had largely abandoned the four man rotation and were retreating from their long-held preference that starting pitchers finish ballgames. In retrospect it’s pretty clear that the late eighties were a turning point, formalizing long-developing pitcher usage patterns in ways that few would have anticipated.

The second edition of the book added team essays, which were uniformly forgettable. These were followed by a set of truly interesting, but unsystematic, manager essays. For this reader, these justify the book’s existence.

There’s some worthwhile stuff in the back of the book. Gary Gillette–or perhaps the scoresheet project in general–offered some interesting measures of defensive ability, reworking range factor to measure opportunities more precisely. I’m not sure whether anyone followed up on this effort, but it’s certainly interesting. I’d like to see more work along these lines.

Gillette and Dave Nichols did something similar with base runners, measuring steals in terms of opportunities rather than attempts. This, too, seems to be a one-off effort, and again it would be interesting to see further work in this vein. The same authors also took a brief look at baserunner advancement on hits, not offering much analysis but presenting a few tables.

Mark Pankin followed up on his discussion, in the previous edition, on Markov Chain Analysis, mostly presenting better data but not really extending the earlier essay. Matthew Lieff and Gary Skoog considered a similar, but less calculation-intensive, approach to using the same data to examine the effectiveness of in-game strategies.

In other end-of-book essays, David Gordon looked at Quality Starts and found them meaningful. In contrast, Merrianna McCully offered scads of data about the weakness of contemporary pitching–a piece that I’d characterize as more entertaining than informative. And Brock Hanke described Whitey Herzog’s playing career, and pondered how it shaped the Cardinals organization when he became the team’s GM. The Hanke essay was a good preview of the work he’d later do elsewhere. It was also the book’s only piece I still remembered when re-reading 25 years later.

This was the first time I saw Hanke’s name in print. The same is true of several of the book’s other contributors: John Benson, Sherri Nichols, Stuart Shea, and Sean Lahman come quickly to mind. (Tom Tippett was there, too, as one of the project’s programmers.) Just bringing these folks (and Pankin, in the previous edition) to my attention is plenty of justification for the effort.

This was the last GABSB produced in this guise, though Gary Gillette would resurrect the title for another project a few years later. It was certainly a worthwhile experiment, but apparently wasn’t sustainable.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.




Revision History:

JD by Jamey Newberg: a review

“JD” is Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels. This short ebook’s subtitle is Building the team that built a winner, and it’s available from Newberg’s website for a mere $2.99. If you’re even slightly interested in how baseball’s front offices work, you want to read this.

While this work necessarily has some biographical content, it’s largely about how Daniels runs the Ranger’s organization–the things he emphasizes, the people he hires, the objectives he sets, the ways he communicates, the methods he uses to collect information, and the reasons behind those practices. Newberg, who’s been writing about the Rangers organization since the late 1990s, clearly knows the material. While I see some room for disagreement about causes and effects, the author’s basic argument seems to be sound.

I need to qualify the recommendation a bit. This book really could have used an editor. Newberg tends to assume we know who the Rangers’ senior staff members are; an editor would have insisted on more explanation. An early chapter is cluttered with lists telling where staff members worked before joining the Rangers; this could have been better handled with tables, or even summaries. There’s far too much repetition in this text–the author sometimes repeats a point on consecutive pages. And there are a couple sentences which just beg for blue pencils.

JD is heavy with quotations, most of which seem to have been drawn from other websites and publications. In-text references–or even a list of works & websites cited–would have helped, even though I’m familiar with most of the author’s sources.

Despite the qualifications, this is an excellent case study. It covers much the same territory as Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2%–but is shorter, and more interesting. Highly recommended.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.

Revision History:

A Tradition of Victory by Alexander Kent: a short review

Admiral Bolitho leads a small squadron tasked with destroying the small craft the French are building to convey an invasion force across the Channel, shortly before the anticipated Treaty of Amiens brings a temporary peace. His captains include Thomas Herrick (a commodore in this book), Francis Inch, Oliver Browne-with-an-e, John Neale, and Valentine Keen. And old Phalarope–Bolito’s frigate in To Glory We Steer–joins the fleet on location, with Adam Pascoe as first lieutenant. Things go wrong, then they go right.

There are telegraph towers, too. All of these Royal Navy series need a story involving telegraph towers. (That’s a cheap shot. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

Besides the naval action, and a bit of political discussion, this book’s notable for its portrayal of Belinda Laidlaw, who’s loyal (far beyond the call of duty) and loving. At the end of the book Richard and Belinda marry.

McBooks Press (or perhaps IPG, their distributor) is the only publisher I read that routinely does scanned ebooks properly. They’ve obviously given thought to presentation, as chapter headings are deliberately (albeit oddly) formatted, nearly all scanning artifacts have been fixed, and mid-chapter text breaks are clearly indicated. The big publishers should take note, and follow suit.









This review was originally published on LibraryThing.

Revision History: