Monthly Archives: August 2008

Baseball Benefits Battle Creek (1999)

Again, some hints about the team budget amongst the boosterism. Comparing with the 1976 Danville program’s similar blurb, we see that costs about tripled in two decades. Hmmm.

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1977 Baseball Abstract by Bill James: a short review

Most of the book contains then-unusual breakdowns and breakouts–monthly player stats, steal prevention effectiveness for pitchers and catchers, team age. More interesting, at least at this point, are his explorations of umpiring patterns (little difference, except for a couple outliers) and some early musings about evaluating fielding. Interesting, but really very early work.

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The Bill James Baseball Abstract, 1982: a review

In retrospect, Bill clearly intended the book as a sabermetric primer. It introduces many of his basic thought structures, sometimes in depth, but it’s directed at folks who haven’t given baseball statistics the in depth consideration he’s brought to the subject. Much fun, for all that.

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Baseball in Danville (1976)

Professional baseball today, in modern, comfortable, well-lighted parks, provides any community at any level with measurable and tangible benefits. A city can have few greater community assets.

Baseball is a proven deterrent to juvenile delinquency. It provides clean and wholesome recreation at moderate cost for the entire family. It provides live actors in dramatic combat, and escape from the hum-drum.

There’s also the dollar and cents value of a team to a community. While this is difficult to measure accurately, a team will leave a sizeable amount of money in a city during the five-month season.

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