If I think I'm going to be bored someplace, I'll take it with me. Right now, it's the Bill James Handbook.
If you see me somewhere, I've probably got it with me. It's the Christmas season and my wife likes to take me, like her purse, on shopping trips. Once we arrive at her destination, I'll find a bench and read or study. I read every word of the Bill James Handbook, yep, including the register. I love the register. Years of stats for each player. Formulating how or remembering how each player arrived at their final totals.
Such a friggin' baseball nerd.
Anyway, today I am waiting for my grandson to get out of school. I arrived half an hour early and pulled out Bill James to while away the time. An old baseball crony of mine recognizes me and starts laughing when he sees the book.
"Still a baseball guy, huh?"
"Guilty".
"Whatcha reading?"
"Bill James Handbook."
He looked at the page I was on. (I had just started the register)
"Holy cow! That looks like a phone book. You always were into the numbers. I just liked the game."
"I've been 'reading Bobby Abreu's stats for an hour."
"No you haven't!!" Why? Who cares? It's Abreu?! He's washed up."
"I know. And if he has any non-greedy bones in his body, he'll retire instead of hanging on longer.
I think there should be a new wing in the Hall of Fame. A sabremetric wing. Abreu probably won't be voted into the Hall, but he'd be in the Sabr wing.
13 straight seasons of 15/15 production, hitting .300 most of those years. Over 100 walks eight times. 162 games a few times. Eight seasons of 100 runs. Eight seasons of 100 rbi. He never got 200 hits. Never got 190 hits. You know why?"
"Why?"
"Because he was getting on base by taking walks! It's really an interesting career page. Look at all those doubles!
You know, a lot of people think of doubles as a pretext to home runs. I look at them more as lucky singles....what do you think?"
He shook his head.
"You haven't changed. Still with the numbers.
You know what I think?
I think that if it's taken you that long to get through Abreu, you ain't never finishing that goddamn book.
That's what I think"
He looked at me like I was Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin.
I understood.
I've seen the look before.
I tried to appeal to his baseball sense of humanity.
"Willie Mays never even had 13 seasons in a row of 15/15 stats. He did have back to back seasons of 30/30. But nobody cared back then"
A pause.
A look at his wrist watch.
I know what's coming from him...
"Dan, it was great seeing you. I gotta go. Sometime we'll go hit a bar and you can read your phone book for me, I don't know how, but you made it mildly interesting for me. I gotta go."
Good enough for me
