THE FOLLOWERS OF BILL JAMES. I boasted here about the fact that Mary Jane and I were among the early subscribers to whom Bill James dedicated his 1983 BASEBALL ABSTRACT.
Joe Posnanski had an article on the NBC Sportsworld website on the influence of Bill James on baseball. James still writes about baseball, and he has held the title of Senior Advisor with the Boston Red Sox for a number of years.
Posnanski says: “Bill James’ early work is often compared to the music of The Velvet Underground; the old line goes that only 30,000 people bought The Velvet Underground’s debut album, but every one of them started a band. Well it seemed just about every person who read Bill James’ early Baseball Abstracts would start a Website or a blog, and write about baseball (or other things) as an outsider.”
Well, this blog is about baseball or other things. And our son Nick writes regularly for the Catbird Seat blog, which is part of ESPN’s Sweetspot team coverage. (You can google espnsweetspot and find it listed with the blog links for all the major league teams. For example, here.)