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Review by Budd Bailey
There's good news for baseball fans who like to think. Bill James has a new book out.
This latest effort is all about managers -- good ones, bad ones, and the ones in-between. It's not really a reference book; there are no lists of every manager who ever set foot on a baseball field. Instead, the book is closer to a collection of articles -- big and small -- on managers, with the subjects chosen on the basis of whatever James finds interesting. It's hard for the serious baseball fan even to pick up the book for a moment without stopping several times along the way because something has grabbed his or her attention.
When his Baseball Abstract came out in 1982, James lit the fuse for the explosion of information that has taken place in baseball since then. For example, players, executives, and fans used to talk about a catcher having a good throwing arm, but James started counting up which catchers would throw out the most baserunners attempting to steal.
Somewhere along the line, James got a reputation with some people for being strictly a numbers analyst. That's not fair, because James had -- and has -- two qualities that no one else in the field has. He is an excellent researcher and a fine writer. Both of those skills are on display in this latest book.
Budd Bailey is a frequent reviewer of sports books in Buffalo, New York.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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