THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

It reminded me of something like a Chicken Soup for the Soul chapter, except I didn’t really get the point.  It was kind of all over the place.

Tom is too modest to mention that he was instrumental for encouraging me and helping me to get in contact with the fine folks at The Hardball Times.

I appreciate all your assistance, Tom, and thanks for mentioning the essay.  I literally could not have done it without you.

Hi Mike,

I can see that.  I suspect my writing might be an acquired taste.  No worries.  Sorry I couldn’t make a better impression.

I think I am as instrumental to Roel’s accomplishments as a pick is to Jimmy Hendrix playing the guitar.  In the blink of an eye, he’d have found a pick, and even without one, his talent would have been exposed anyway in short order.

I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.

***

Roel may be an acquired taste.  You definitely can’t read him in internet speed, but rather savor the prose.  He’s the non-jock version of Dirk Hayhurst:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/dirk_hayhurst/

Personally, I remember when I started receiving encouragement from Tom.  When guys like Tom Tango and Bill James and The Hardball Times tell you that your writing is okay, it’s a shot in the arm.  Writing is a very solitary act, and whenever people that you admire tell you they like it, it can be invaluable for the self-confidence.

Mike’s reaction to my writing is not all that unusual.  I think the problem is often one of expectations.  If someone expects a conventional baseball column, they will frequently be disappointed.  The ratio of “baseball content” to “personal reflection” in my essays is really unbalanced.  But the writing seems to strike a chord with some people, and that’s all I can really hope for.

Well, I’ll say a few things.  And I’ll qualify this by saying, I’ve received three “A” grades on papers/essays, in my life.  Total.  So I’m far from qualified to be any sort of critic.

For one… I tend not to like things when I don’t know where there going.  I always reference the Lord of the Rings movie (the first one) when I talk about this.  I knew they had to get the ring in the volcano, but I also knew there were two other movies so I was thinking they weren’t gonna git ‘er done in the first one.  So as a result, I’m watching these guys trample through the forest, fight the wraith guys, etc, but I have really no idea what they were trying to accomplish in *that* movie.  I’m not saying this is a sign of bad writing, just writing/storytelling that I don’t personally enjoy.

For another… as far as personal reflection goes, I think that’s pretty welcome by most folks.  Posnanski has parlayed that (along with a good sense of humor) into one of the better sports blogs out there.  Perhaps the best.

I guess the bottom line of my criticism/advice is that I’d suggest you look at your individual pieces like a Full House episode.  Or, to make this a little more current and young, a How I Met Your Mother episode.  Write what’s on your mind, as personal and reflecting as you want, and then look it over and see if there’s a trend emerging.  And if so, wrap it up with that at the end.  This one felt like there was an epilogue, but no conclusion

Anyways, looking back, I’m sorry if my comment seemed overly critical (or underly helpful).  Part of it stems from my genuine interest in hearing you (or Tom, or anyone else who gets it) “wrap it up” and spell out the message for me.

Hi Mike,

You certainly don’t have to qualify your criticism.  As I’ve said, it seems like a valid complaint.  I’ve heard people say that my writing doesn’t work for them.  I didn’t take it as “overly critical.” (Wait—comparing my writing to “Chicken Soup of the Soul” isn’t a compliment?  Hold on...)

It’s useful to have people provide feedback on my writing.  My essay did have a point, and I’m a little reluctant to spell it out.  But I suppose it can’t hurt. 

I’m not comfortable with the idea of explaining my writing—it seems like an awfully defensive response from a writer—but since you asked, I’ll give it a shot in this instance.  Here’s what I was trying to say:

It was basically an essay about hero worship and our relationship with baseball players from a fan’s perspective.

I think a lot of people look up to Major League Baseball players.  We think they’re better than us.  It’s easy to feel inferior comparing yourselves to a Major Leaguer who makes millions of dollars, performing in the spotlight in front of thousands (or millions) of people, doing athletic things that you can’t possibly do. 

But in the end, if you look past that, you realize that maybe you don’t need to look up to these people just because they have a blazing fastball.  And at one point in my life, I reached the realization that I didn’t need to feel inferior, to feel envious of Big League ballplayers.  I was fine.  They weren’t any better than me. 

And by writing about my personal journey, I hoped that it would also be a relatively universal experience that other people could relate to…

So.  That’s about it.  I don’t know.  Sometimes the message works.  Sometimes it gets lost in translation.

Thanks again for reading the essay.  Please don’t hesitate to be critical of my writing in the future.  I write over at Bill James Online, and there’s always someone who disagrees with me on one level or another.  That’s the life of a writer.

Cheers.

I made a comment on ballhype (as sdanne), but I’ll add to it here. I’m not a BJO subscriber… is there anywhere else where I can read your writing or some of your previous work?

I think it really comes down to defining who your audience is and making sure that you’re communicating with your audience. I wouldn’t pretend to know what your audience is, Roel - I can tell you I liked the piece just fine, for what it’s worth.

But there’s always going to be a set of people that don’t connect with whatever you’re writing, and that’s fine. Otherwise you end up with everything being written like newspaper copy, for the lowest common denominator. (By that I mostly mean AP wire articles and the hard news stuff, not features or commentary writing.)

I suppose there’s a fine line between being purely self-indulgent as a writer as opposed to being self-fulfilling, but I think a little self-indulgence as a writer is fine, adds a little passion to the material.

The one thing I’ll add, and this is more a general note on writing than a note on Roel, so please don’t construe this as having anything to do with Roel or the piece in question: The Internet is great for giving people voices who normally wouldn’t have one otherwise, and you discover a lot of new and interesting writers that way. (Heck, that’s how I’m able to do what I do.) But I sometimes feel like we’re living in a perpetual rough draft. On one hand it’s exciting because you get a lot of immediate feedback and you can tell what’s working and what isn’t. But I know I can get a little wordy (and very self-indulgent) when I’m putting something out in blog-time. I don’t know if there’s an answer for that.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your comment over at BallHype.  I just responded over there.  I suddenly find myself running around a little bit, trying to be responsive to readers from the Hardball Times, Bill James Online, and over here.  Fun, but a little circuitous.

Thanks for asking about my work.  I used to write travel documentaries in Asia, but I don’t think those shows are readily available anywhere.  At this point, the bulk of my writing is for Bill James Online.  Because I hold a full-time job at Harvard, I’m not certain how much time I can devote to my writing interests beyond the Bill James commitment.  But hopefully I can keep contributing to The Hardball Times as well.  It’s a nice way to build up my writer’s profile.  I appreciate your interest and your support.

Hi Colin,

These are excellent words of wisdom, and they are indicative of the way I usually operate.  As Shakespeare wrote, “To thine own self be true.” I think I would spend a lot of time second-guessing myself if I tried to anticipate the preferences of every potential reader out there.  In theory, Dave tells me that 30,000 people will read my piece on The Hardball Times by the end of the week.  I can’t even imagine trying to successfully communicate with each one of them.  As I said from the start, I’m very comfortable with the idea that I’m an acquired taste.

So in general, I would rather not talk about my intentions and let the writing speak for itself.  But in this case, Mike was kind enough to write me a direct response, and he said: “Part of it stems from my genuine interest in hearing you (or Tom, or anyone else who gets it) “wrap it up” and spell out the message for me.” If an interested reader makes a personal request to have it spelled out, it seems a little mean-spirited not to cooperate.

I am appreciative of the people reading my work.  I am even more appreciative of the people who take time to comment.  And if I have to take the uncomfortable step of explaining my writing, it seems worth doing if I can accommodate a reader’s personal request.

Thanks so much for your thoughts, Colin.  They tend to echo much of my personal opinions on writing.

Yes, a different writing style, but very well written, and I enjoyed it. I do a more technical style of writing, and always have to remind myself to clearly state my point in the first paragraph or two, before the , then recap at th end. I fear getting five paragraphs into an explanation, and the reader doesn’t know what it is I am explaining. Roel didn’t follow this style, but the quality of the story telling kept me interested.

Hi Brian,

That would be an accurate assessment of things.  I have a tendency not to declare my true intentions at the beginning.  I don’t really have any hard and fast rules on how I structure my essays.  In the end, I write to the best of my ability and try to make it interesting.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I’d hate for Roel to adapt his style to anything that he wasn’t comfortable with, that’s for sure.  He can grow, and he can branch out, but there is true wisdom in “to thine ownself be true”.  And also “if you build it, they will come”.  I’d rather that Roel blaze the path, then just be another boxcar on the tracks.

From the moment I first submitted my writing samples to Bill James, I knew that I was going to have to live with the fact that not everybody is going to like my writing.  It’s a little different, and it’s pretty much a direct reflection of the way my brain thinks.

The points that Brian and Mike make are legit—I don’t always spell things out, I don’t always indicate where I’m going, and I don’t always explain everything as I go.  Because of this, I know some readers won’t enjoy the experience.  Which is fine, and I can’t blame them.  But essentially, changing the way I write would require me to change the way my brain works.  And I’m afraid that won’t be happening in this lifetime…

I do want to thank all of you for your support and your constructive criticism.  It’s helpful to me, and I do take everything into consideration.

Cheers.

Interview:
http://scottsimkus.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/interview-roel-torres/

Fun interview. I need to get a t-shirt made up that says “Second-Rate Android.”

I may be a third-rate android, but I’m smart enough to use Tangotiger’s Basic Pitch Count Estimator, and I’ve applied it to some Satchel Paige data at (Click name). Hope to see you there.