Ye Olde Moneyball
December 9, 2011 11:38 AM Subscribe
"The time has passed when the public will any longer swallow the palpable falsehood that a home run is no better than a scratch single." (PDF) Before Brad Pitt; before Michael Lewis, before Billy Beane; before Bill James; and long, long, before the Society for American Baseball Research, there was F.C. Lane.
The editor-in-chief of Baseball Magazine for 30-odd years, F.C. Lane also wrote a book called "Batting" and lots and lots of articles about baseball. Several of them ...
* "The Base on Balls"
* "Where the Baseball Records Fail to Tell the Truth" (PDF)
* "The Greatest of All First Baseman" (PDF)
* "An Exploring Tour into Baseball Figures" (PDF)
* "What Are the Odds?" (PDF)
* "The Tremendous Value of Little Things in Baseball" (PDF)
* "How Runs are Scored" (PDF)
* "Why the System of Batting Averages Should be Changed" (PDF)
* "Why the System of Batting Averages Should be Reformed" (PDF)
... presaged the rise of "sabermetrics" more than half a century later.
(previously, previouslyer, and more previouserly, sort of)
The editor-in-chief of Baseball Magazine for 30-odd years, F.C. Lane also wrote a book called "Batting" and lots and lots of articles about baseball. Several of them ...
* "The Base on Balls"
* "Where the Baseball Records Fail to Tell the Truth" (PDF)
* "The Greatest of All First Baseman" (PDF)
* "An Exploring Tour into Baseball Figures" (PDF)
* "What Are the Odds?" (PDF)
* "The Tremendous Value of Little Things in Baseball" (PDF)
* "How Runs are Scored" (PDF)
* "Why the System of Batting Averages Should be Changed" (PDF)
* "Why the System of Batting Averages Should be Reformed" (PDF)
... presaged the rise of "sabermetrics" more than half a century later.
(previously, previouslyer, and more previouserly, sort of)
Speaking of statistics and work to do today, you know those ridiculous fluff pieces where they talk about how many hours of American corporate productivity are lost due to March Madness or CyberMonday? I'm think we're going to have to do that with Metafilter during December as well.
Related: I've had trouble getting PDFs to open on my work computer for a few weeks, and it looks like this post is going to be the one that finally gets me to call the help desk.
Also related: You know how people have adapted a "TV Tropes link" warning. I need one of those for BaseballReference.com too. It's my third favorite sport at best, yet still... it's draws me in inexplicably like when I read some screens-long entry on TV Tropes for some anime trope full of only examples from animation I've never even heard of.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:00 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]
Related: I've had trouble getting PDFs to open on my work computer for a few weeks, and it looks like this post is going to be the one that finally gets me to call the help desk.
Also related: You know how people have adapted a "TV Tropes link" warning. I need one of those for BaseballReference.com too. It's my third favorite sport at best, yet still... it's draws me in inexplicably like when I read some screens-long entry on TV Tropes for some anime trope full of only examples from animation I've never even heard of.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:00 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]
Speaking of statistics and work to do today, you know those ridiculous fluff pieces where they talk about how many hours of American corporate productivity are lost due to March Madness or CyberMonday? I'm think we're going to have to do that with Metafilter during December as well.
If we consider the average time on metafilter spent by a user in December as time that COULD have been spent feeding hungry kittens, then we can safely assume that roughly a bazillion kittens go hungry every December because of metafilter alone.
posted by Stagger Lee at 12:10 PM on December 9, 2011
Whenever I feel like I don't get paid enough, I go back and count the number of metafilter comments I've made between 7am and 5pm on weekdays and multiple by 10 minutes ... um.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:41 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by mrgrimm at 12:41 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]
I do not believe that it would be considered in Poor Taste to put forth my Opinion that Mr Alexander Rodrigo, late of the New-York American League Ball-Club has not produced Base-Ball Statistics that support the outrageous Per Diem he is granted by the Owners of the Club, the Stonebrenner Family. Indeed, it is purported by the Royal Rooters of the Boston Red-Sox Ball-Club, that Mr Rodrigo does, in fact, suck.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:24 PM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]
posted by Rock Steady at 1:24 PM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]
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Darn you right to heck.
posted by S'Tella Fabula at 11:43 AM on December 9, 2011