DESERT ISLAND BOOK #1 :

A baseball bible, the James version (Bob Ryan, 4/9/2002, Boston Globe)

I am hardly ashamed or embarrassed to say that I have learned a great deal about baseball from reading James, but there are some among us who hesitate to give this man his proper credit because they deride him as just a math geek. In truth, he outcalculates all of us and outwrites most of us. There are any number of so-called Sabrematicians and assorted baseball numerologists, but 25 years after James first appeared on the scene, he stands apart, as much for the superb quality of his writing as for the intriguing nature of his statistical findings.

He is back in our lives in a big way, with a 970-page tome titled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, the ''New'' referring to the existence of the Historical Baseball Abstract published 14 years ago. If you're like me, you'll wish the book had 1,970 pages.

As it happens, I'm exactly like Mr. Ryan. My copy of the original Historical Abstract is pretty tatty by now, having been thumbed through frequently. I look forward to the new edition.

Its publication reminds me though of the old BBC radio program where they'd ask people which five records they'd take with them if they were stranded on a desert island. I could do without the music, but if I had five really good books I'd be very happy. (I never could figure out why any of the castaways wanted to get off of Gilligan's Island.) The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract would probably replace the old one at number one on my list of top five desert island books.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 9, 2002 4:18 PM