tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post8269720562405898148..comments2024-03-15T23:25:52.517-07:00Comments on the joy of sox: "We Haven't Figured Out Anything Yet"allanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673233312198832937noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-45053475279851605782009-06-27T07:30:46.541-07:002009-06-27T07:30:46.541-07:00I have always maintained that Baseball is the spor...I have always maintained that Baseball is the sport where Physics meets Poetry.<br /><br />:)<br /><br />I dare anyone to be able to account for all the statistical variance in that match up.Lisa Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07530826748768737972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-70203698220068823062009-06-26T15:44:40.466-07:002009-06-26T15:44:40.466-07:00I like the Dashiell Hammett and the DFW.
Nothing ...I like the Dashiell Hammett and the DFW.<br /><br />Nothing in the world could ever make me enjoy watching tennis, but I love the way Wallace writes about it. <br /><br />If you read these quotes a certain way, they undermine what James and his disciples want to do. "It's a mystery" needs somehow to be balanced with "How much can we know?" and "Do we really know what we think we know?".laura khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-10672466867400410582009-06-26T14:36:16.650-07:002009-06-26T14:36:16.650-07:00Great quote, Curtis. It's funny how Hammett wo...Great quote, Curtis. It's funny how Hammett would have these philosophical asides in his novels, total non sequiturs in terms of the story, but very insightful into human nature. There is one in The Maltese Falcon as well that is pretty cool.<br /><br />(DFW quote is nice as well.)Zenslingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06040836002694584468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-2351807973605083772009-06-26T09:44:20.181-07:002009-06-26T09:44:20.181-07:00I liked what Cameron said, but this was also an ex...I liked what Cameron said, but this was also an excuse to post some James quotes!<br /><br />Also, here is David Foster Wallace saying similar things about tennis, from an old essay on Michael Joyce ("The String Theory"):<br /><br />I submit that tennis is the most beautiful sport there is and also the most demanding. It requires body control, hand-eye coordination, quickness, flat-out speed, endurance, and that weird mix of caution and abandon we call courage. It also requires smarts. Just one single shot in one exchange in one point of a high-level match is a nightmare of mechanical variables. Given a net that's three feet high (at the center) and two players in (unrealistically) fixed positions, the efficacy of one single shot is determined by its angle, depth, pace, and spin. And each of these determinants is itself determined by still other variables — i.e., a shot's depth is determined by the height at which the ball passes over the net combined with some integrated function of pace and spin, with the ball's height over the net itself determined by the player's body position, grip on the racket, height of backswing and angle of racket face, as well as the 3-D coordinates through which the racket face moves during that interval in which the ball is actually on the strings. The tree of variables and determinants branches out and out, on and on, and then on much further when the opponent's own position and predilections and the ballistic features of the ball he's sent you to hit are factored in. No silicon-based RAM yet existent could compute the expansion of variables for even a single exchange; smoke would come out of the mainframe. The sort of thinking involved is the sort that can be done only by a living and highly conscious entity, and then it can really be done only unconsciously, i.e., by fusing talent with repetition to such an extent that the variables are combined and controlled without conscious thought. In other words, serious tennis is a kind of art."<br /><br />***allanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04673233312198832937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-58943324271878675812009-06-26T08:18:51.969-07:002009-06-26T08:18:51.969-07:00We all know this is a game of inches. Hell, this ...We all know this is a game of inches. Hell, this is a game of millimetres. If the ball and the bat have only a few millimetres more contact or less contact - if the ball is spinning just the tinest bit more or less...If it breaks a centimetre more or less... That can make all the difference. <br /><br />The physics alone behind everything that goes into hitting the ball, where it goes and what happens when it gets there is astonishing. There are trends we can use to try to predict what will happen or try to analyze what's happening now but in the end it can all come down to a couple millimetres here or there.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14809080115678512743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-6948076211470692892009-06-26T07:49:36.777-07:002009-06-26T07:49:36.777-07:00Here's Dashiell Hammett's version of Bill ...Here's Dashiell Hammett's version of Bill James's point, from The Dain Curse: <br /><br />"Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking's a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can. That's why people hang on so tight to their beliefs and opinions; because, compared to the haphazard way in which they're arrived at, even the goofiest opinion seems wonderfully clear, sane and self-evident. And if you let it get away from you, then you've got to dive back into that foggy muddle to wrangle yourself out another to take its place."Curtishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04459922375418678120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-48394973586440207392009-06-26T07:29:15.830-07:002009-06-26T07:29:15.830-07:00Yeah, good stuff, I can never get enough of Bill J...Yeah, good stuff, I can never get enough of Bill James, the 'anti-gasbag'. To me, the elephant in the room is always 'luck'. The more baseball I watch, the more I find myself muttering about luck, or lack thereof. Then there are slumps and hot streaks ...Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10275164807141705059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-70964482163176183402009-06-26T07:19:03.005-07:002009-06-26T07:19:03.005-07:00yedsyedsandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13080026360873456937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-91622853467967815562009-06-26T06:26:22.837-07:002009-06-26T06:26:22.837-07:00Excellent! Thank you for posting. And: what Amy sa...Excellent! Thank you for posting. And: what Amy said.<br /><br />In the purely baseball sense, I wish more people understood what Bill James and his followers, like you, are actually trying to do. <br /><br />Not long ago someone showed up on JoS to announce "This is baseball. Facts have nothing to do with it." and "Stats can't predict the future." That kind of ignorance of even the intent behind the analysis is so common.laura khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730822.post-57644236204212619292009-06-26T05:56:24.546-07:002009-06-26T05:56:24.546-07:00Great quotes from James. And what he says applies...Great quotes from James. And what he says applies to so much more than just baseball.Amyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15720293202890878993noreply@blogger.com