This is my second response to the book Moneyball. Right now in the story, it is talking about a man named Bill James, who essentially invented sabermetrics, a new style of selected and drafting players in the MLB, based upon on base percentage. He first started by creating a book called the 1977 Baseball Abstract. He offered a different take on baseball, based on “language,” not numbers. He says, “When the numbers acquire the significance of language, they acquire the power to do all of the things which language can do: to become fiction and drama and poetry,” (Lewis 67). He explains how numbers can lie, and the more effective way to measure baseball players. Although his first book sold barely 75 copies, he created another book, the 1978 Baseball Abstract. More people read it, so he made another one in 1979. He made a way to predict “runs created” by a team, by a formula of “Runs Created= (Hits + Walks) x Total Bases/(At Bats + Walks),” (Lewis 77). James was essentially creating a baseball science for people to follow. Dick Cramer was a fan of James, and founder of a company called STATS Inc. It wanted to seek this information to baseball teams, but they didn’t want anything to do with it. So, they started selling it to the fans. This information started a love for baseball analysis from people, who eventually discovered Bill James, and made him famous. James had been producing the Baseball Abstract annually, and “has given the field of study its name: sabermetrics,” (Lewis 82). People started reading him more and more, and although some too him seriously, others did not, which led him to realize the MLB had “built very effective walls to keep out anything,” (Lewis 85). He finally stopped writing the Baseball Abstract in 1986, and quit being a sabermetrician, because no one believed him, and thought his ideas were crazy. The author plainly describes this, and uses characterization in the form of description to tell us about Bill James.
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