THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Quit being such a smarty, Mr. “I have a computer and know how to use it” knowitall!  Have you no respect for the narrative power of the PRINTED (by a printing press) word?

And while you’re at it, get off his lawn…

I’ve never heard of the red book or the green book (I have heard of The Book), but I’d imagine that a combination of B-Ref and plain old Google could do the trick if Chass is too lazy to download it. Reading that kind of makes me wish he’d go back to ranting about Jim Rice or Bert Blyleven.

If you really want to prove the point, I recommend a group of committed fans of this whole ‘computer’ thing print out copies and send them to Mr. Chass, as he seems to have trouble doing it himself.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3934830

I love how the last line is almost a throw-in.  “pdf” should probably be capitalized (it is an acronym).  Doesn’t that last line look out of place in a news story?  Shouldn’t it say: “A printable online version, in PDF format, is made available to the media”.  Presuming the reader knows “pdf” in this particular story that’s all about how there is no MLB-print-and-distributed version seems important, no?

I think a great rule would be that everybody who thinks that this is some great travesty (Chass, Nightengale, etc.) should be kicked out of the BBWAA forever. I just get the feeling that there’s a great correlation between dumb voters and those who think these books are vital in any meaningful way.

This part especially tickled me: “Younger writers, more attuned to the use of the Internet than their older colleagues, may not have a problem with the disappearance of the books. But in past years they didn’t have the Internet as an alternative reference site. They apparently just didn’t feel the need for any information the books provided.

That says more about them than it does about baseball’s decision.”

Uh, Murray, the Internet has been around for quite some time. It’s really not that new anymore.

Don’t make fun of the poor man. His brain got hit hard by the Y2K bug (us young folk were apparently spared), and he just jumped back to 1900. You’d probably rant like a mad-man too.

I used to buy them every year.  I am almost certain that they discontinued them 10 years ago or so.  Did they reinstate them a few years ago?

The issue with these .pdf’s is that you have to register with MLB Pressbox, obtain an account, abide by the terms of service, then use download the file, and print as needed.

Murray may be able to get MLB to get an account for Pressbox, but I could not do so.  Someone would have to break their contractual agreement to give me one.

That’s an “issue”?  For Murray Chass, already credentialed with MLB, who is able to speak to everyone in the MLB office, to be given the URL (or a “website number” for guys like him and Biden) for him to create a userid and password? 

And, I would think he must already have one.  There’s tons of game notes, etc, on there that is very useful for the media.