THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

It’s not true.  Virtually everyone, including probably all readers of this blog, would rather cure cancer than watch baseball.  But curing cancer costs a lot more money than watching baseball, so we opt for the cheaper good.

I usually agree with Bill James, but not here.  Saying “we are far more interested in having good baseball teams than we are in finding a cure for cancer” is exactly like saying, “we are far more interested in going to McDonald’s for lunch than we are in going on a luxury cruise.” It’s true, but it’s the price that causes it.

You can chip in to try to cure cancer.  You can’t chip in to take a cruise.

The disposable income you spend is a user-fee that is self-imposed.  People simply prefer to spend more on themselves (and their family) than they do on others (be it the starving or those trying to help others).

Mother Teresa we are not.

Excessive self-indulgence is closer to it.

These arguments are always stupid, because they look at money per employee instead of total funding. The NIH spent 5.6 billion on cancer research in 2008. That doesn’t count any of the non-profits or any other privately funded research. It also doesn’t count any cancer treatment, obviously. Baseball revenue was 6.5 billion that year.

Baseball players make the money they do because it only takes 25 players, maybe 10 of which will make big money, to support an entire major metropolitan area. To take the “teachers” route, the Orioles have 25 major league baseball players that make ~70 million combined. Maryland has 57,000 teachers and spends over 8 billion on education. Much more money, but spread out over many more employees.

If you take all the salaries earned from players in MLB, MiLB, college, and high school, the “per employee” numbers look fine, too.  What’s your point?

People have discretionary income and make choices.  They get free baseball from high school.  They pay through the nose for MLB.  They could instead pay that money to something else.

Same deal with movies.

Same deal with going for a Lexus instead of a Camry.  Or an Accord instead of a Civic.

People spend on themselves for luxury.  And, if those starving people moved to America, they would, in all likelihood, eventually behave the same way.

This is simply what it is to be human: we help others, but not at the price of our self-indulgence.  Because we want to enjoy the fruits of our labor to be happy, not just be happy by saving other people’s lives.

Tom,

Not to put words in someone’s mouth, but #3’s point is that we as a society spend MORE on cancer than we do on MLB. Therefore, Bill James’ conclusion that we value good baseball teams more than we do curing cancer is based on faulty logic. He’s conflating individual salary with overall spending.

My last post assumes that #3’s numbers are correct.

Indirectly, we as fans are supporting charities, some of which fight cancer/aids/autism etc…

Many of the players and owners use their profits/salary, money us fans have given to them for services rendered to donate to these and other wonderful charities.

By the way anyone else have trouble with the box where you type in the security word.  I usually have to type it in about 7 or 8 times before it goes through.  It always comes back and said I typed it wrong, when in fact I didn’t.
vr, Xei

I don’t think that this effect is all that hard to understand: we correctly perceive that the marginal benefit to ourselves of spending $100.00 to watch a baseball game is vastly greater than the marginal benefit to ourselves (or perhaps anyone) of donating $100.00 to cancer research. The choice isn’t between curing cancer and watching baseball; it’s between helping in an incredibly insignificant way to maybe cure someone else’s cancer and watching baseball. We simply do not value those truly marginal contributions to cancer research like we value watching a baseball game. Perhaps we’d like to think we do, but we don’t. The question of whether or not this preference is misguided or immoral is another question entirely.

PS: Thanks for the link, Tom! I doubt that the analysis on my humble blog is of sufficient quality to satisfy readers of this blog, but it sure is nice to be noticed.

They might not be exactly right (I didn’t spend too long on google), but it’s close.

“The reason, Mr. James argued, that ballplayers make so much and medical researchers so relatively little is that, “[W]e are, as a nation, far more interested in having good baseball teams than we are in finding a cure for cancer.” This is factually incorrect when you look at total spending.

My point is we do value cancer research more than baseball as a society, although not that much. We value education much, much more. Every argument I’ve ever seen on this, including the one James put forward, looks at researcher or teacher salary and compares it to the highest paid athletes. He’s simply wrong about this one.

I agree with most people here. It’s an irritating trope put forward by people trying to seem wisely cynical.

1. “We” spend much much much much much much more on cancer treatment/research than baseball.
2. If one could buy a “cancer cure” for the price of a baseball ticket or even season tickets, pretty much everyone would do it.

thats why i tell my alumni association to get bent when they try to guilt me into donating money. 

i think james may be over simplifying but he has a great point, especially when it comes refuting the whole ‘ball players [or whoever] are overpaid’ trope

his point runs into trouble when you start picking apart the whole MLB>cancer research aspect of it, which i dont think is true in many measurable ways.

“Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.”
-E.B. White

Great quote!

Baseball has had something like a monopoly for 80+ years. It is in many respects ideally suited for all the mass media of that period (newspaper, radio, TV, internet). It has invested much of its profits into marketing, and marketing which elevates the game beyond mere entertainment into the mythological. As its success benefits the media holders as well, the media themselves market baseball. There is an intense concentration of marketing for MLB that elevates on an everyday cultural plane. How would it be possible for baseball NOT to bring in more capital than a theory of economic rationality would predict? The economic analysis of this question and the cultural analysis of this question have to go hand in hand to provide anything other than mere soundbites or comforting moralisms.

I’m not sure James has much of a point in that quotation. It does not appear remotely likely that there is, simply put, a cure for cancer waiting to be discovered. Cancer is a giant problem to deal with. I don’t know why cancer ought to be cordoned off from the bulk of human endeavors for health and wellness. The airwaves are full of Viagra and Cialis ads; is it fair, on some level, to say that the US cares more about treating ED than preventing cancer? Or is it fair to say that the corporations behind these drugs and their research had market reasons to saturate the advertising and media realms to get the word out? How can “we” talk about “our” role in events where whatever power we exercise is filtered through so many layers of influence?

There is a heavily distorted viewpoint on agency that emerges in Barra’s article, one fitting with the aims of the WSJ and its fellow Murdoch media companies. Who is the YOU? Why is everybody lumped together, even when we know the amount of corruption involved in MLB’s stadium deals, the dependence on luxury boxes, etc.? Without making sociological distinctions about where MLB’s money is actually coming from and where medical research money is coming from, how can this discussion begin?

“It isn’t some vague indefinable ‘they’ who pays the players. It really isn’t even the owners. It’s you, or rather, it’s us.”

This is horse feces. Does the ‘us’ include the media that drive MLB profits? Does it include the congresses, executives, and courts that set up the tax codes, financial policies, antitrust law, etc?  Does it include any *realistic* assessment of power in the society, or its relation to wealth? Barra is just engaging in a useless, amorphous moralizing that is pretty customed-tailored to the amorality of the WSJ’s general readership. How can you start by telling the fans to take responsibility when you don’t acknowledge your own role, or make any attempt to paint a more nuanced picture? Yes, ultimately, it is the fans’ money that pays for things, but that does not mean that there are not a myriad of corporate and government entities subsidizing MLB, and it doesn’t mean that the economic and governmental powers in this country haven’t joined along in the cultural promotion of baseball such that a wide swath of its population sees baseball and MLB as indispensable to their lives.

If the argument is that fans have the power to seize their responsibility and cause change, it is vital that we actually analyze the power that determines fan activity to start with, for those are the power relations we would seek to alter.

Barra’s corporate parent took years off of my life with incessant Dane Cook playoff ads; until we cure those, how would we cure the ailment Barra purports to diagnose?

Medicine has been beta-testing treating cancer with various different techniques for a very long time with dollars that come from ordinary folks.  Doctors poison their patients and calculate any benefits obtained, then repeat the process a little bit differently as their careers progress over time. Are those costs accounted for?

Vast sums are also spent on palliative care for cancer patients.  Are those costs accounted for?

Do we add in expenditures for medical schools?

Could a clever accountant amortize a portion of costs of the Manhattan Project, as it led to the creation of nuclear medicine?

I have to acknowledge bon vivant Andy Grabia, formerly of Battle of Alberta, as having created the expression “glove tap”.

A major league baseball player on average very likely contributes more social welfare than an average cancer researcher.  Don’t see a problem with that at all.  But I wouldn’t characterize that as “fuck curing cancer,” though I admit it does make for a more interesting title.

fifth of, I’m having trouble comprehending your post.  For example, you ask, “is it fair ... to say that the US cares more about treating ED than preventing cancer? Or is it fair to say that the corporations behind these drugs and their research had market reasons to saturate the advertising and media realms to get the word out?” (emphasis mine).  These are the same questions and they have the same answers.  There is certainly a market for cancer research and treatments, but as you suggest, it is not nearly as large as the market for ED research and treatments.  Most likely this is because ED is far more common and seriously affects one’s qualify of life; we are, after all, evolutionarily driven to sex.  Or are you trying to suggest it’s marketing that drives the size of the market?  Under what economic model do you come to this conclusion?  Why can’t cancer researchers hire the same marketing firms?

You then go on to discuss power and wealth which likewise makes little sense to me.  I think you’re saying that it’s the financially and politically powerful that contribute more to MLB’s high status (relative to cancer research) than the average fan.

First, I think you mischaracterize Barra; he’s making an economic argument, so “you” clearly means all market participants, which includes both powerful and average fan.  He’s not distinguishing them; in his article, he does distinguish owners and players from fans to make a rhetorical point, and while it would’ve been more precise to include owners/players in “you,” owner and player consumption of baseball is trivially small that it doesn’t affect his point. 

Second, I seriously doubt there are more government subsidies for MLB than for cancer research.  If I am incorrect, well, then Median Voter Theory; to the extent the powerful invest into MLB, it is because there is financial and political capital to be made there, and the source of such capital comes from all market participants, and by definition, the average fan contributes the most to such capital.  Here’s a thought exercise: let us assume all market participants suddenly switch their utility functions and every dollar they would have spent on baseball is now donated to cancer research.  I find it highly unlikely the “powerful” would continue to support MLB to the extent they currently do.  The reason is clear: there is no longer any money to be made supporting MLB.

Perhaps you are saying the powerful shape our preferences.  I find this dubious and bordering on paranoia.  How do they shape our preferences?  Through marketing?  Again, if that is the case, why can’t cancer researchers hire the same marketing firms?  Moreover, the average fan is unaware of the extent of governmental and corporate support of MLB.  It’s not like anyone except MLB advertises on behalf of MLB.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1344

Only 15 percent of voters would be willing to pay $500 to $1,000 more in taxes each year for a health care plan that reduces costs and covers those who don’t have health insurance. Another 27 percent would pay less than $500 per year, with 3 percent who would pay $1,000 to $3,000 and 45 percent who don’t want to pay additional taxes.

“And f-ck those who are too poor to have health insurance.”

I don’t think the market for ED is greater than cancer, either research or drugs.  The marketing opportunity for ED is greater than cancer because ED treatment is something people put off because of embarrassment, so the drug companies try to create an environment where it is socially acceptable to go to a doctor and admit to the problem.  It’s also an elective problem; you don’t die from ED.  Cancer, on the other hand, doesn’t need to market the need to take treatment; once you’re diagnosed, it’s a pretty rare person who would turn down the treatment.