In the late 1970's, A Kansas Man, Bill James, who has I understand was a night watchman at the time, used his love of baseball to create a Sports Revolution.
Mr. James had just about zero patience with baseball folk wisdom that explained the way the Sport worked. He fewlt that too many people were saying things that had never been well-calculated, thought out and evaluated. It bothered him when sports writers and baseball commentators spewed out information that was just their opinion or what others had, likely thoughtlessly and uncarefully, had passed on to them.
Bill had a passion for researching records and was and still is a gifted mathematician. He applied formulas to models and then began to share Baseball Analysis tied to what can be both observed and documented, what, simply, could be proven.
Bill James started to self-publish at the end of the 1970's. By The Early 1980's, Ballantine Books published the first of the Annual Bill James Baseball Abstracts. Bill, becoming irritated by some of the demands of the fans who loved his work, ended the annual abstracts with the 1988 Edition.
Then, In 1989, The First Madden Game was released. Baseball, Basket-Ball and Hockey among other sports had their games, also, reproduced in a video game format. This makes me wonder, How much of what Bill James started to work on 35 plus years ago make possible the Games that EA Sports, 2K Sports and other enterprises now routinely design and market.
Billy Beane , of Money Ball Fame, says his theories and their practice all owe muck to the work of Mr. James. Alan Barra has admitted he borrows liberally from James in his well-regarded efforts to analyze The NFL.
This, I AM inclined to wonder, Do The Sports Games Producers, heed to consider Bill James to be Their Founding Father and Patron Saint?
- Johnny-
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