This year, there is a fascinating offering from the people at the Elias Sports Bureau, that murky organization charged with compiling the official statistics for everything.
National Bocce League, United States Curling Association, Major League Tiddlywinks, you name it--Elias keeps their numbers for them.
Elias is also the official statistical consultant to major league baseball and reveals its "secret files" in the Analyst. For the hardcore baseball fan, information is dynamite and should be treated as such.
The overwhelming wealth of statistical information on the volume is potentially debilitating--there is enough here to keep you from ever putting to down and going to bed.
James presents a finite amount of statistical information in the Abstract, since most of the book is prose. The Analyst is mostly numbers and places a multitude of fascinating facts at the fingertips of the enterprising reader.
Dan Petry shuts down John Castino (.048, 1-for-21), but gets shelled by George Vukovich (.571, 8-for-14, 4-HR). The Twins were 53-48 with Houston Jimenez starting at short.
Everything is here. Stats that you never dreamed existed are here and in profusion: batting vs, left- and righthanded pitcher, with runners on base, with the bases empty, in late inning pressure situations, on grass, on turf, at home, on the road, with runners in scoring position, runners in scoring position and two outs, leading off innings and runners on third with less than twoOuts, in each months, etc.
The Analyst has the record of every team by players starting at different positions--Yankees 15-11 with Ken Griffey at first, 20-14 with him in left, 16-18 in center, 3-3 in right and 1-2 as a leadoff hitter. It also rates each player in the league number of categories and you learn that Argens Salazar was 134th and last in the National League in batting average (including a several .089 during the day), slugging average, on-base percentage and home-run percentage: that he was second to last in walk percentage and seventh from the bottom in strikeout percentage.
The Analyst is well-laid out and easy to manage, despite the brute intensity of its information.
The writing is also brutish, however. Although the authors keep their write-ups on the teams mercifully brief, one does get an opportunity to sample some truly pathetic prose.
Despite some dense, ugly passages, many of America's foremost baseball writers, including the incomparable Thomas Bowell of The Washington Post, have praised the Analyst to the highest heavens.
It is an incomparable tool for the season. After the box scores begin to pile up and the pitching rotations start to whirl around, the Abstract gets laid aside until the off-season, as you concentrate on the season at hand. The Analyst, on the other hand, is a book that will be at your side all summer long, helping decipher every single game in a way.
Baseball statistics are a wonderful thing; they speak with a richness that no other sport can match. Football doesn't have .235 hitters.
After opening this book, you'll really want to know how that .235 hiter fared in late inning pressure situations or on turf or with runers on third and less than two outs or...