from Amazon
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Turning children into saberists
BJOL readers:
Bill, Do you have any recommended baseball books or websites for a bright 7 year old who is just getting intersted in baseball and says he wants to be a sabermetrician when he grows up? What did Issac like at 7? Is there a Bill James for kids somewhere?
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Sabermetrics for seven year olds? Why not just encourage him to read baseball books. I liked the John Tunis series when I was that age. Or maybe it was some other guy… who wrote “Good Field No Hit” and “Long Ball to Left Field”.
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On a personal note, I started getting into baseball when I was 7 (1977-1978) and began collecting baseball cards… I became really interested in the stats on the back of the cards and then found the 1969 Baseball Encyclopedia at the library around 10 years old, which was like finding a gold mine. I started reading the Abstracts when I was 14. 7 is not too young to enjoy this stuff.
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Just a comment re seven year olds. My nephew is 7, lives in Alabama, and follows the Braves. Immediately upon learning of the Posey injury, he said “I guess Eli Whiteside will get a lot more playing time now.” He plays simulation games with his dad and can name the entire roster of the 62 Yankees. He studies the game cards looking for every edge.
When and how do you become a saber-zombie? For me, the first moment was probably when I saw the Plus/Minus figures in The Hockey News Yearbook. I was probably 10. It could also have been when I played my first Table Top game (Extra Innings). Around the same age. I also collected baseball and hockey cards at the same time. At some point, I guess I got interested in the tradeoffs and player comparisons. Then there was a Baseball Digest article on Linear Weights, comparing Robin Yount and Dwight Evans. That led to Hidden Game, and somehow I also ended up with Bill James Abstracts when I was a teenager. In between there, I used to collect the Who’s Who (red cover).
But before all that, I played baseball (or softball) and (ball) hockey a lot as a kid. That, I think, would be the first thing to do, to make sure that given the choice between playing and reading, that the kid would rather play. And given the choice between watching a game on TV or reading about baseball, that the kid would rather watch the game. It has to be a part of you first. Otherwise, if he holds more interest in reading about baseball than playing and watching, then it’ll be something that he will dispose of at some point.
If he wants to read, the library is filled with far better books than those about baseball.