The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball [Hardcover]

Scott Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 14, 2006

The first book to chronicle the life and ideas of “the serious baseball fan’s high priest” (New York Times), the impact of his brilliant and entertaining writings, and how someone who never pitched a ball, held a bat, or managed a team fundamentally changed the way baseball is interpreted, analyzed, and even played.

Bill James has been called “baseball’s shrewdest analyst” (Slate) and “part of baseball legend” (The New Yorker), and his Baseball Abstract has been acclaimed as the “holy book of baseball” (Chicago Tribune). Thirty years ago, James introduced a new approach to evaluating players and strategies, and now his theories have become indispensable tools for agents, statistics analysts, maverick general managers, and anyone who is serious about understanding the game.

James began writing about baseball while working at a factory in his native Kansas. In lively, often acerbic prose, he used statistics to challenge entrenched beliefs and uncover surprising truths about the game. His annual Baseball Abstract captured the attention of fans and front offices and went on to become a bestselling staple of the baseball book category. In 2002, the Boston Red Sox hired James as an advisor. Two years later they achieved their long-awaited World Series triumph.

The Mind of Bill James tells the story of how a gifted outsider inspired a new understanding of baseball. It delves deeply into James’s essential wisdom–including his surprising beliefs about pitch counts and the importance of batting-order, thoughts on professionalism and psychology, and why teams tend to develop the characteristics that are least favored by their home parks. It also brings together his best writing, much of it long out of print, as well as insights from new interviews. Written with James’ full cooperation, it is at once an eye-opening portrait of baseball’s virtuoso analyst and a treasury of his idiosyncratic genius.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I enjoyed The Mind of Bill James immensely - indeed, immoderately"--Tracy Kidder, author of The Soul of a New Machine

"Takes the reader on a fascinating journey into a brain I know so well."--Randy Hendricks, Hendricks Sports Management

"I couldn't put it down. It's absolutely a great read and I strongly recommend it."--John Dewan, ACTA Sports

About the Author

SCOTT GRAY is the author of a series of Street & Smith’s sports annuals. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385514646
• ISBN-13: 978-0385514644
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Book does not live up to its catchy subtitle, September 7, 2006

By 

dcreader (Washington DC area) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball (Hardcover)

"The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outside Changed Baseball" delivers better on the first part of the title.

The book serves as a narrative biography of James, who is best known for popularizing a term he coined, "Sabrmetrics" or the use of statistics to analyze all facets of baseball decisionmaking, from which minor league pitchers would have solid major league careers to the value of stolen bases. While it summarizes James's most important ideas, it really doesn't explore how they've impacted the Major Leagues at all, even though James is now a paid consultant to the Red Sox and his ideas clearly play a role.

Gray's sources seem to be limited to James's writings (which are mostly out of date) and interviews with James. He really doesn't seem to have talked at all with other baseball executives to get their views on James's methods, and therefore its really difficult to know how seriously those truly "in power" take them. For instance, Billy Beane of the A's is known to use Jamesian methods and done quite well with them (see Michael Lewis's "Moneyball"). Gray doesn't seem to have talked with him or other GMs though.

Another disappointment is the cursory coverage Gray gives some of James's most important ideas, such as the concept of "Win Shares" that allows players to be evaluated over different periods of time, i.e. did Yogi Berra or Jackie Robinson contribute more to their teams' success? Calling the concept too complicated to really break down, Gray doesn't even get to it until about 2/3 of the way through the book.

One of the reasons for this is a real weakness of the book - its use of a narrative format instead of a topical one. Because the book takes James from childhood to the presdent and discusses his ideas as he wrote them, there's no sense of hierarchy, i.e., which of them are most important in terms of their contribution to baseball, which is the book's ostensible purpose.

Finally, the book doesn't really take a comprehensive look at the world of baseball analysis to get a sense of how much ground James really broke. The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) preceeded James's appearance onto the scene. To what extent did James popularize work being done already (James can write clearly and make the mundane fascinating) and to what extent did he plow new ground? Again, while the book acknowledges that there was this universe of research and analysis before James, he doesn't even begin to explore this.

None of this is to criticize James at all, who best exemplifies someone who writes about the game with intelligence and passion. His ideas are important (whether you agree with him or not), and deserve a better explication than this volume.

In short, a good concept poorly executed in my view.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Bill James, and neat biographical technique, March 17, 2006

By 

Mark Cannon (Larchmont, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball (Hardcover)

This combination biography/compendium of Bill James may not be of much interest to people who aren't Bill James fanatics, but if you are, it is a delight. Mr. Gray does a great job of tracing James' life in fine and lively detail, and much of the biographical information will be new even to his fans. But actually I believe the book is most noteworthy for its creative excerpting of James' work and for its interesting biographical technique.

James' story is told in more-or-less chronological order, but not by a usual kind of author's narrative. It is presented in large part through reminiscences and anecdotes from James' friends, acquaintances, and family (with occasional contributions from James himself), interspersed with excerpts from James' own works, all woven together nicely by the author. The biographical material is very well chosen and seems quite complete. Along the way, we get a nice overview of James' work through the years. Also the book has a wonderful and user-friendly appendix that lists and summarizes his major ideas and arguments.

The use of the excerpts from James' works is particularly interesting. James' own books often go on tangents where he makes reference to episodes from his life, and Mr. Gray did an excellent job of finding them and putting them in order. I never would have realized that those tangential ramblings by James would almost add up to a biography in themselves, but they just about do.

I think the book does have a small weakness, one that I don't mind. The author mentions having been influenced by James, and it shows in his style -- which isn't a weakness in itself, but if you're familiar with James' writings, you'll probably recognize some of this writing as sort of poor imitation James. For example, the first sentence of Chapter 1: "Like William Shatner singing 'Rocket Man,' bad lineups have a perverse appeal." That's exactly the kind of thing Bill James would write, probably the kind of thing that ONLY Bill James would write, but not as good -- although I must admit some of James' own metaphors are pretty lame. :-) But anyway I don't mind because I would smile at ANY Bill James, even imitation Bill James.

Overall, a delightful, creative biography, truly a labor of love. I'm sure that in time there will be other biographies of Bill James, but this is a most worthy and welcome first one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Favorite Author, May 14, 2006

By 

John Donovan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball (Hardcover)

Throughout the 80's, my two favorite days of the year were the first touch football game of the fall and the day the Baseball Abstract was published. I adored James baseball analysis and his writing. This book took me back to those days and for that I am grateful. I do agree with the criticism that Gray is more a Red Sox fan than a baseball fan and that was somewhat annoying, but overall this is a very good read.