WEBVTT - Episode 3: Field of Ignorance 0:00:15.276 --> 0:00:21.956 Pushkin. I spend a lot of my life walking into 0:00:22.036 --> 0:00:25.436 complicated situations and trying to figure out who really knows 0:00:25.476 --> 0:00:29.716 what's going on, who the expert is. It's not always 0:00:29.716 --> 0:00:33.676 easy to tell. But there was one time when it 0:00:33.796 --> 0:00:39.076 was easy. This was back in two thousand and two. 0:00:39.556 --> 0:00:41.916 I just decided to write a book about something truly 0:00:41.956 --> 0:00:45.676 weird happening in professional baseball. People with a talent for 0:00:45.716 --> 0:00:49.396 analyzing data were proving that people who ran baseball teams 0:00:50.036 --> 0:00:52.956 didn't really know what they were doing. What was happening 0:00:52.956 --> 0:00:55.956 in baseball was the first shot in an expert revolution. 0:00:56.836 --> 0:01:00.076 We're still living in it. It goes by different names, 0:01:00.996 --> 0:01:06.316 big data, analytics, moneyball. You may not look like a 0:01:06.316 --> 0:01:18.476 winning team, but you are one. Back in two thousand 0:01:18.476 --> 0:01:20.956 and two, it was instantly clear who the expert was. 0:01:21.556 --> 0:01:25.356 His name was Bill James. He lived in Lawrence, Kansas, 0:01:25.956 --> 0:01:29.196 and so to Lawrence, Kansas I flew, and I remember 0:01:29.196 --> 0:01:32.676 two things about that encounter. The first was his manner. 0:01:32.716 --> 0:01:38.596 How unlike a revolutionary he seemed. He was big, with 0:01:38.636 --> 0:01:41.076 a beard like a bear, but a slow moving one 0:01:41.076 --> 0:01:45.796 that only ate plants. He was slow, and deliberate and unassuming. 0:01:46.796 --> 0:01:49.596 He had every reason to see himself as the world's 0:01:49.676 --> 0:01:53.596 greatest expert in baseball. But that's not how he saw himself. 0:01:55.076 --> 0:01:56.916 The other thing I remember was the picture on the 0:01:56.956 --> 0:02:00.396 wall by his desk, a picture of a baseball diamond. 0:02:01.196 --> 0:02:04.876 He pointed to it and said, that's a field of ignorance. 0:02:09.236 --> 0:02:12.116 Bill James could have bassed in what he knew about baseball, 0:02:13.396 --> 0:02:17.036 but he made a point to remind himself of what 0:02:17.076 --> 0:02:28.076 he didn't know. I'm Michael Lewis. Welcome back to Against 0:02:28.116 --> 0:02:32.596 the Rules, where we explore unfairness in American life by 0:02:32.636 --> 0:02:35.556 looking at what's happened to various characters in American life. 0:02:36.436 --> 0:02:40.996 This season is all about experts. Our first episodes looked 0:02:41.036 --> 0:02:44.796 into the ways that people do or do not understand experts. 0:02:45.716 --> 0:02:48.516 Now we're going to talk about how experts do and 0:02:48.676 --> 0:03:02.996 do not understand themselves. Our entire society is like baseball 0:03:03.156 --> 0:03:05.196 was when I wandered in to write a book about it. 0:03:05.916 --> 0:03:08.916 We have this talent for generating new knowledge, which we 0:03:09.356 --> 0:03:13.796 proceed to ignore. This was Bill James's experience for much 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:17.396 of his life. How and why did you get interested 0:03:17.396 --> 0:03:20.316 in the game of baseball? I suppose I got interested 0:03:20.356 --> 0:03:22.636 in baseball in the same way that many other people do. 0:03:24.316 --> 0:03:27.756 The nineteen sixty one season was a fascinating season. And 0:03:27.956 --> 0:03:32.276 I was eleven years old and discovered baseball cards that 0:03:32.396 --> 0:03:37.316 spring and just got instantly hooked on them and never 0:03:37.396 --> 0:03:41.716 quite grew out of it. Did you a play, Yes, 0:03:41.756 --> 0:03:44.796 but not well enough to talk about I'm a very 0:03:44.836 --> 0:03:49.036 I'm a very bad athlete. I'm not highly competitive. So 0:03:49.156 --> 0:03:51.556 it was always your interest in baseball was always from 0:03:51.556 --> 0:03:55.476 the point of view of a fan. Yes, the score 0:03:55.996 --> 0:03:59.796 at the end of private Yankees too. He wasn't like 0:03:59.916 --> 0:04:03.196 most kids. He didn't dream of playing baseball, of having 0:04:03.236 --> 0:04:06.676 the experience, and he didn't grow out of his childhood obsession. 0:04:07.356 --> 0:04:11.596 He grew into it. If I'd have grabbed you and said, Bill, 0:04:11.636 --> 0:04:14.956 please explain to me, like why you're interested in this 0:04:15.156 --> 0:04:17.236 to the extent you are, what would you have said 0:04:17.996 --> 0:04:21.956 as to why I was interested in it? It filled 0:04:21.956 --> 0:04:25.796 a hole in my soul somewhere. I'm not going to 0:04:25.876 --> 0:04:28.636 push you too hard on this, but the hole in 0:04:28.716 --> 0:04:31.596 the soul. What was the hole in the soul that 0:04:31.956 --> 0:04:44.076 this stuff filled. I had a difficult childhood. My father 0:04:44.156 --> 0:04:49.196 was a small town school janitor. I had no mother. Anyway, 0:04:49.196 --> 0:04:53.116 it was very, very hard. Bill was the youngest of 0:04:53.196 --> 0:04:56.476 six children. Their mother died of cancer when Bill was 0:04:56.516 --> 0:04:59.556 four years old. Right after that, their father had a 0:04:59.636 --> 0:05:05.636 nasty accident. It left him for a time paralyzed. Baseball. Well, 0:05:05.676 --> 0:05:09.196 two things got me through it. What is baseball? And 0:05:09.276 --> 0:05:11.316 the other is that I had a sister a year 0:05:11.356 --> 0:05:16.316 older than me named Nell, and Nell and I really 0:05:16.316 --> 0:05:21.316 thought of ourselves as one person. We weren't loners exactly, 0:05:21.396 --> 0:05:23.996 but we disliked me in together, just the two of us, 0:05:24.476 --> 0:05:29.716 we did everything together. Bill's sister Nell Ritchie. I remember 0:05:30.276 --> 0:05:34.796 we didn't have kindergarten in our little town. We went 0:05:34.796 --> 0:05:37.316 straight into first grade. So when I went into first grade, 0:05:37.796 --> 0:05:41.076 I took him with me. I remember just dragging him 0:05:41.076 --> 0:05:43.116 along to school with me, and he said on my 0:05:43.196 --> 0:05:46.396 desk and he left it. At any point, did it 0:05:46.476 --> 0:05:50.596 occur to you that he had an unusual view of 0:05:50.636 --> 0:05:57.756 the world around him. Yes, you know, in the evenings 0:05:57.796 --> 0:05:59.996 we didn't have television, so in the evenings we had 0:05:59.996 --> 0:06:03.636 to amuse ourselves. And the way he amused himselfless. He 0:06:03.676 --> 0:06:07.436 just had a big chief tablet and three two boxes 0:06:07.476 --> 0:06:12.236 full of baseball cards, and he would des rite columns 0:06:12.796 --> 0:06:16.276 of a player's name and then all these numbers out 0:06:16.276 --> 0:06:19.076 to the side, and another name, and all these numbers 0:06:19.076 --> 0:06:22.436 out to the side. And he did it night after 0:06:22.556 --> 0:06:26.396 night after night. He'd have pages and pages of columns 0:06:26.436 --> 0:06:31.276 of numbers and names. It was never just about numbers 0:06:31.276 --> 0:06:35.076 for Bill James. He was a search for meaning. The 0:06:35.156 --> 0:06:37.436 James family didn't have a religion, but now went out 0:06:37.436 --> 0:06:40.636 and got one. And so in a way did Bill. 0:06:41.876 --> 0:06:46.556 I don't know. You find one day, just the one day, 0:06:46.676 --> 0:06:49.236 and the one thing for me is is Jesus, and 0:06:49.316 --> 0:06:52.276 the one thing for Bill is baseball. You get the 0:06:52.356 --> 0:06:56.396 idea to a young, effectively orphaned Bill James, Baseball was 0:06:56.436 --> 0:07:01.196 never just baseball. When I was eleven, I was massively 0:07:01.236 --> 0:07:03.476 confused about the nature of the universe and why it 0:07:03.556 --> 0:07:12.596 hated me, and it became very important to me to 0:07:12.636 --> 0:07:16.076 create an order to the universe. Baseball was the starting point. 0:07:16.116 --> 0:07:19.996 It was It was the steak in the ground that 0:07:20.196 --> 0:07:24.476 I used to try to make what sense I could 0:07:24.516 --> 0:07:33.116 out of an overwhelmingly complicated universe. Why is it such 0:07:33.156 --> 0:07:37.716 a particularly good place to do the kind of thinking 0:07:37.876 --> 0:07:43.356 you did? Baseball is very very orderly. In baseball, the 0:07:43.356 --> 0:07:46.916 players take turns, they stop at marked off points, point 0:07:46.956 --> 0:07:49.316 one or point two point three, or they come home. 0:07:49.996 --> 0:07:53.316 There are a number of outs. It's an extremely orderly 0:07:53.436 --> 0:07:55.676 universe gaming the ball and just pushing a toy to 0:07:55.716 --> 0:08:00.276 play with that bad arm throw the first not in time, 0:08:00.356 --> 0:08:06.836 Johnny Law staving back, life could feel senseless, but baseball 0:08:06.916 --> 0:08:11.316 could be fully understood and seemed to be understood. To 0:08:11.396 --> 0:08:14.396 hear the insiders talk, you think the big things worth 0:08:14.436 --> 0:08:22.476 knowing were already known. Year before last the nineteen sixty 0:08:22.516 --> 0:08:24.916 three Sleeves and Washburn won five in a roll at 0:08:24.956 --> 0:08:29.876 the start of the year. At what point in your 0:08:29.956 --> 0:08:34.556 life do you first recall having thoughts about the game 0:08:35.076 --> 0:08:38.076 that might be different from the thoughts that are coming 0:08:38.076 --> 0:08:40.516 out of the mouths of announcers and sports writers and 0:08:41.476 --> 0:08:43.676 the kind of people who talk publicly about the game. 0:08:45.076 --> 0:08:47.836 In nineteen sixty six, there was an article in the 0:08:47.876 --> 0:08:52.716 Sporting News saying that the Dodgers were thinking about whether 0:08:52.756 --> 0:08:57.716 they could keep West Parker and the lineup. I don't 0:08:57.756 --> 0:09:00.116 know who West Parker is either, but that's okay. West 0:09:00.156 --> 0:09:02.876 Parker isn't the point here. The point is the young 0:09:02.956 --> 0:09:05.876 Bill James and the way he mulled over what everyone 0:09:05.916 --> 0:09:08.956 else was saying. West Parker was a very fine defense 0:09:09.236 --> 0:09:13.676 first basement, but he didn't hit, and they were thinking 0:09:13.676 --> 0:09:16.036 about whether they could afford to keep him in the lineup, 0:09:16.116 --> 0:09:19.076 although they said he probably saved the Dodgers a hit 0:09:19.156 --> 0:09:23.676 per game with his glove. It struck him that the 0:09:23.756 --> 0:09:26.116 value of taking a hit away from the other team 0:09:26.516 --> 0:09:28.636 was the same as getting a hit for your team. 0:09:29.396 --> 0:09:31.636 If West Parker, in every game took a hit away 0:09:31.636 --> 0:09:34.516 from the other team, then West Parker was in effect 0:09:34.556 --> 0:09:37.356 a four seventy hitter. That would make him the best 0:09:37.436 --> 0:09:39.996 hitter who ever lived. And if West Parker was the 0:09:39.996 --> 0:09:42.276 best hitter who ever lived, you'd better keep him in 0:09:42.316 --> 0:09:44.836 the lineup, no matter how bad he was it everything else. 0:09:45.436 --> 0:09:48.276 I wrote a twelve to fifteen page letter and sent 0:09:48.396 --> 0:09:51.276 it to the Sporting News, which you can imagine what 0:09:51.356 --> 0:09:55.316 their reaction to that was. Anyway, let us say they 0:09:55.316 --> 0:09:59.396 did not publish it. So by nineteen sixty six I 0:09:59.476 --> 0:10:03.596 was quite certainly having chains of thought about the game 0:10:03.636 --> 0:10:07.156 that were different than what I was being told. You 0:10:07.156 --> 0:10:10.156 you were already thinking this is worth arguing about. Yes. 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:14.516 Bill was only sixteen at the time. His sister Nell 0:10:14.676 --> 0:10:18.076 soon left home and got married. Bill went to college 0:10:18.316 --> 0:10:21.996 at the University of Kansas. He took classes in economics, 0:10:22.036 --> 0:10:24.356 but only because he saw that he could apply economics 0:10:24.356 --> 0:10:29.396 to baseball. From a distance, his life seemed almost normal. 0:10:30.476 --> 0:10:32.636 Only his sister was close enough to see that. It 0:10:32.676 --> 0:10:38.476 wasn't if I'd asked you as he gets a bit older, like, 0:10:38.556 --> 0:10:40.516 what do you think is going to happen to your 0:10:40.556 --> 0:10:43.996 brother when he grows up? What do you think you 0:10:44.076 --> 0:10:47.676 might have said? What's he going to be? They went 0:10:47.716 --> 0:10:51.996 to college, he got his degrees, and then he didn't 0:10:52.036 --> 0:10:55.076 do anything with him. And I remember that, you know, 0:10:55.116 --> 0:10:57.436 I was thrown obviously by then, and I was just 0:10:57.556 --> 0:11:01.516 puzzled in the head because he you know, he spent 0:11:01.596 --> 0:11:05.396 all that time and energy and money getting these degrees 0:11:05.396 --> 0:11:08.996 and he's working as a night watchman in a working 0:11:09.236 --> 0:11:15.076 bean factory. What is a heads going on? Bill James 0:11:15.076 --> 0:11:17.676 guarded pork and beans, and not just any pork and beans, 0:11:17.876 --> 0:11:20.436 Stokely Van Camp's pork and beans. They've been a part 0:11:20.476 --> 0:11:22.676 of the family for over a century. I used to 0:11:22.676 --> 0:11:24.276 eat those beans when I was a little kid, So 0:11:24.316 --> 0:11:27.636 it's possible Bill James was guarding my beans. One of them. 0:11:27.676 --> 0:11:32.636 Are those great simple pleasures? Anyway, guarding these beans gave 0:11:32.716 --> 0:11:34.916 him time and space to do what he really wanted 0:11:34.956 --> 0:11:39.036 to do, think even more about baseball. I was not 0:11:39.556 --> 0:11:43.596 a self confident person. I was not a polite person, 0:11:43.676 --> 0:11:46.156 to be blunt, and I was not the kind of 0:11:46.236 --> 0:11:48.716 person who could put on a suit and go do 0:11:48.796 --> 0:11:50.996 a job interview and get a good job. I just 0:11:51.116 --> 0:11:53.916 wasn't made that way. You know. One of the things 0:11:53.956 --> 0:11:58.356 that kind of was just there in our lives was 0:11:58.396 --> 0:12:00.276 that you just accept people the way they are, and 0:12:00.356 --> 0:12:02.556 that was the way he was. So as long as 0:12:02.596 --> 0:12:04.676 they don't get in any trouble and they don't borrow 0:12:04.716 --> 0:12:07.396 money from you, you're you know, and just leave him alone. 0:12:07.436 --> 0:12:12.036 And so we just colleged him alone. The pork and 0:12:12.116 --> 0:12:16.476 beans must have guarded themselves, because inside Stokely Van Camp's factory, 0:12:16.836 --> 0:12:20.956 Bill James got busy cutting and pasting baseball statistics gleaned 0:12:20.996 --> 0:12:24.956 from newspapers. Doing with computers and spreadsheets in the cloud 0:12:24.956 --> 0:12:27.676 would one day make far easier, but doing it, of 0:12:27.676 --> 0:12:31.676 course without those tools, Searching for patterns in the numbers, 0:12:32.676 --> 0:12:36.236 digging for a better understanding of his small, orderly universe 0:12:36.796 --> 0:12:41.436 so he could write a book. There was a community 0:12:41.436 --> 0:12:44.916 of people here who played this local product called ballpark baseball. 0:12:45.476 --> 0:12:47.796 But that community of people who were very much like me. 0:12:48.516 --> 0:12:54.516 That community people was maybe seventy five or one hundred people. Right, Well, 0:12:54.516 --> 0:12:56.516 if there are seventy five or one hundred people in 0:12:56.596 --> 0:12:59.036 Laura's Kansas who have that interest, how aboudy are there 0:12:59.036 --> 0:13:02.036 in the country. It was a very Bill James thing 0:13:02.076 --> 0:13:05.396 to do. Look to data to measure his potential audience. 0:13:05.636 --> 0:13:07.236 Do the math, you know, you come up with an 0:13:07.276 --> 0:13:10.436 answer that's around what, yeah, two three millions something I 0:13:10.436 --> 0:13:13.636 don't know, and I suppose, well, probably it isn't that large, 0:13:13.716 --> 0:13:17.636 but it's got to be large enough. He never imagined 0:13:17.676 --> 0:13:20.556 a real publisher would publish his book because there was 0:13:20.596 --> 0:13:23.356 nothing like his book, and so he need to make 0:13:23.396 --> 0:13:26.756 a photocopy for each and every reader. He was twenty 0:13:26.756 --> 0:13:30.116 seven years old when he finished it. Nineteen seventy seven 0:13:30.196 --> 0:13:35.276 Baseball Abstract, not even the nineteen seventy seven baseball abstract, 0:13:35.596 --> 0:13:41.036 just nineteen seventy seven baseball Abstract. You opened the first 0:13:41.076 --> 0:13:44.236 page of the nineteen seventy seven abstract, which I have 0:13:44.236 --> 0:13:47.356 in my hands right now, and it's just it's like 0:13:47.916 --> 0:13:52.836 it's month by month batting statistics of every of all 0:13:52.876 --> 0:13:54.956 Major leaguers who appeared in one hundred and more games 0:13:54.956 --> 0:13:58.636 in nineteen seventy six, And it goes on to thirty pages. 0:13:58.716 --> 0:14:03.076 It's it's just bought, it's just stats, right. But in 0:14:03.116 --> 0:14:05.076 my mind, when I started writing the book, it was 0:14:05.156 --> 0:14:07.836 most something much greater than that. But when I started writing, 0:14:07.836 --> 0:14:10.116 I had no idea how difficult was to write a book. 0:14:10.556 --> 0:14:12.956 When you're thinking someone's going to pick up this book 0:14:13.236 --> 0:14:16.956 and be interested in it, what makes you think that 0:14:17.236 --> 0:14:20.996 the first thirty pages, the numbers in these first thirty 0:14:20.996 --> 0:14:27.356 pages are going to get it going. The fact that 0:14:27.396 --> 0:14:30.196 I was slow to find my voice and my confidence 0:14:30.316 --> 0:14:37.116 is critical to my having been successful, because I felt 0:14:37.716 --> 0:14:40.996 strongly that no one is going to listen to me. 0:14:41.676 --> 0:14:44.596 I always felt like in order for anyone to pay 0:14:44.596 --> 0:14:47.036 attention to me, I had to have a specific fact 0:14:47.676 --> 0:14:51.076 that I could point to. So you led with these facts, 0:14:51.436 --> 0:14:54.436 which don't make for the most thrilling reading unless you're 0:14:54.436 --> 0:14:58.956 really interested in those facts and they're your anchor. They, 0:14:58.956 --> 0:15:03.836 I mean, they keep you honest. Yes, it took Bill 0:15:03.916 --> 0:15:06.996 James thirty one pages of his first book before he 0:15:07.036 --> 0:15:10.836 finally used some words, but once he did, you could 0:15:10.876 --> 0:15:13.756 see him planting the seeds of a revolution that would 0:15:13.796 --> 0:15:28.916 grow and upend all of baseball. Bill James baseball abstract 0:15:29.276 --> 0:15:32.916 was not just about baseball. He was talking about the 0:15:32.916 --> 0:15:36.556 way human beings valued other human beings. He thought the 0:15:36.596 --> 0:15:39.516 experts of baseball were using the wrong statistics to judge 0:15:39.556 --> 0:15:44.836 the players errors. For example, the statistic assigned to players 0:15:44.996 --> 0:15:49.476 who made obvious mistakes on defense? What is an error? 0:15:50.436 --> 0:15:54.276 That's Bill reading what he wrote. It is, without exception, 0:15:54.476 --> 0:15:57.796 the only major statistic in sports, which is a record 0:15:57.796 --> 0:16:00.796 of what an observer thinks should have been accomplished. Some 0:16:00.956 --> 0:16:04.916 moral judgment, really in the peculiar, a quasi morality of 0:16:04.956 --> 0:16:09.036 the locker room. That judgment was made by the official scorekeeper, 0:16:09.636 --> 0:16:13.436 high up in some booth. That alone filled Bill James 0:16:13.476 --> 0:16:17.276 with a righteous indignation. One has a play on a 0:16:17.316 --> 0:16:21.716 baseball field whenever one has the anticipation, reflexes, and the 0:16:21.836 --> 0:16:24.436 speed to get to where the play is. If one 0:16:24.476 --> 0:16:27.636 does not have the in short talent to get to 0:16:27.676 --> 0:16:30.076 the play, then one doesn't have a play and can't 0:16:30.076 --> 0:16:33.396 be charged with an error. The official score doesn't charge 0:16:33.436 --> 0:16:36.236 anybody with a lack of talent. You have to do 0:16:36.356 --> 0:16:38.956 something right to get an error, even if the ball 0:16:39.036 --> 0:16:41.476 is hit right to you and you were standing in 0:16:41.516 --> 0:16:47.436 the right place to begin with. There was a lot 0:16:47.476 --> 0:16:49.516 more of this sort of thing in Bill's first book, 0:16:49.876 --> 0:16:53.516 a lot of its seemingly obvious yet original and startling. 0:16:54.156 --> 0:16:56.476 But to let people know of his book's existence, Bill 0:16:56.476 --> 0:16:59.076 could afford only a small ad in the Sporting News. 0:16:59.756 --> 0:17:01.836 The ad even promised readers that they could have their 0:17:01.836 --> 0:17:04.956 money back if they didn't like it. I mean by 0:17:04.956 --> 0:17:07.396 a second edition of the book sold three hundred copies, 0:17:07.676 --> 0:17:11.196 and I was like, wow, three hundred copies. I had 0:17:11.316 --> 0:17:14.676 very low expectations that I was surprised that there were 0:17:14.756 --> 0:17:17.796 so many people who were interested in this. And at 0:17:17.836 --> 0:17:22.036 what point do you realize that, like, the key to 0:17:22.156 --> 0:17:26.196 having to thinking about baseball in a new and interesting 0:17:26.236 --> 0:17:29.996 way is going to involve a more sophisticated use of 0:17:29.996 --> 0:17:35.316 statistics than most sports writers and broadcasters and so on 0:17:35.596 --> 0:17:38.876 use them. What I realized was that a lot of 0:17:38.876 --> 0:17:43.876 what people said to be true about baseball was mathematically impossible. 0:17:44.436 --> 0:17:47.116 And by the way, this is still true today that 0:17:47.636 --> 0:17:52.236 people in broadcasting baseball games will routinely make statements which 0:17:52.236 --> 0:17:56.596 are mathematically impossible. I always saw those again, not by 0:17:56.636 --> 0:18:03.356 discipline or work, but just instinctively. Every year, for the 0:18:03.396 --> 0:18:06.636 next five years, Bill wrote his baseball abstract and took 0:18:06.716 --> 0:18:09.916 orders for it. He and his wife Susie, photocopy it 0:18:09.996 --> 0:18:14.236 and mail it out, and his audience grew. A movement 0:18:14.236 --> 0:18:17.716 of like minded souls gathered around him. He gave the 0:18:17.796 --> 0:18:22.676 movement a name, saber Metrics. Saber was an acronym for 0:18:22.756 --> 0:18:28.076 the Society for American Baseball Research. Metrics was well metrics. 0:18:32.596 --> 0:18:35.076 Fans of saber Metrics all had one thing in common. 0:18:35.636 --> 0:18:39.956 They were baseball outsiders. Baseball insiders. The players and managers 0:18:40.036 --> 0:18:42.356 took zero interest in what Bill James had to say. 0:18:43.276 --> 0:18:46.036 On the other hand, baseball fans applied what they learned 0:18:46.036 --> 0:18:48.876 from Bill to build teams in their fantasy leagues, and 0:18:48.956 --> 0:18:52.996 they were killing it. Then one day Bill James got 0:18:52.996 --> 0:18:56.956 a phone call from the agent of a major league 0:18:56.996 --> 0:19:02.316 player entering arbitration. Arbitration is a bizarre process in baseball. 0:19:02.756 --> 0:19:04.876 The player and the team appear before a panel of 0:19:04.916 --> 0:19:08.196 three judges to argue about his next year's salary. You 0:19:08.316 --> 0:19:11.996 get into him arbitration case. What's the arbitrator want to know? 0:19:12.916 --> 0:19:14.916 This side says his player is really good, and the 0:19:14.956 --> 0:19:17.116 side says he's not so good. The side says he's 0:19:17.156 --> 0:19:19.196 comparable to the set of players, But what are the 0:19:19.236 --> 0:19:22.356 facts here? The player in this case, a pitcher, needed 0:19:22.396 --> 0:19:25.076 an expert to help him counteract his team's argument that 0:19:25.156 --> 0:19:28.236 he was worse than he claimed. His one loss record 0:19:28.276 --> 0:19:31.676 was nine and sixteen, but his offense's support had been 0:19:31.756 --> 0:19:34.876 very poor. In other words, my pitcher only seems to 0:19:34.916 --> 0:19:39.116 suck because your team sucks, And we introduced an exhibit 0:19:39.476 --> 0:19:44.436 showing that his offense suport had been normal. Is one 0:19:44.476 --> 0:19:51.036 loss record probably been about fourteen and eleven. It wasn't 0:19:51.076 --> 0:19:54.876 necessarily the pitcher's fault that his team had lost, anymore 0:19:54.916 --> 0:19:57.636 than it was necessarily a mother's fault that her kids 0:19:57.636 --> 0:20:01.556 had turned out badly. To evaluate any pitcher or any mom, 0:20:02.156 --> 0:20:04.836 you had to think some more about it. Bill James. 0:20:04.836 --> 0:20:07.396 Next exhibit in the pitcher's defense made the argument that 0:20:07.476 --> 0:20:10.316 his one loss record was simply a byproduct of the 0:20:10.396 --> 0:20:12.756 number of runs his team scored while he was pitching 0:20:13.196 --> 0:20:16.516 and the number of runs they allowed. It's basic now, right, 0:20:17.116 --> 0:20:20.116 something everybody knows. But at the time there's like, oh, 0:20:20.156 --> 0:20:22.276 so that they had no response to that at all. 0:20:22.356 --> 0:20:27.036 So it's kind of great. It's kind of great that 0:20:27.076 --> 0:20:30.956 their ignorance is actually honest. That there is they actually 0:20:31.156 --> 0:20:33.996 they aren't thinking the other side the end, the people 0:20:33.996 --> 0:20:36.996 who are running the baseball team actually aren't thinking. That's right, 0:20:37.196 --> 0:20:40.156 they weren't. But why were Why weren't they thinking? Michael? 0:20:40.276 --> 0:20:43.956 They weren't thinking because they thought they knew. And that's 0:20:44.036 --> 0:20:48.316 that's what destroys me and all of us keeps this 0:20:48.436 --> 0:20:51.836 from doing the things we could do. Is they thinking 0:20:51.876 --> 0:20:55.396 that we know things that we don't actually know. This 0:20:55.596 --> 0:20:58.916 total outsider who was just trying to understand some little 0:20:58.916 --> 0:21:02.596 corner of the universe was creating smarter ways to value 0:21:02.596 --> 0:21:07.716 athletes just as athletes were becoming seriously valuable, just as 0:21:07.716 --> 0:21:10.956 baseball salaries were going from tens of thousands of dollars 0:21:10.996 --> 0:21:15.436 to millions of dollars. The insiders still ignored Bill James, 0:21:15.716 --> 0:21:19.276 but the outsiders loved it, and in nineteen eighty two, 0:21:19.476 --> 0:21:24.276 a real publisher offered him a book contract. Baseball is 0:21:24.396 --> 0:21:27.556 drowning in records, and people think about them and talk 0:21:27.596 --> 0:21:30.516 about them and write about them a great deal. Why 0:21:30.516 --> 0:21:34.476 doesn't anybody use them? I really don't know, but that, 0:21:34.636 --> 0:21:38.756 in essence is what I am about. Here Bill was 0:21:38.796 --> 0:21:43.036 now publishing without a photocopy or staples. His audience grew 0:21:43.076 --> 0:21:47.596 from thousands to hundreds of thousands, all baseball outsiders. He 0:21:47.676 --> 0:21:50.316 saw no sign that anyone inside a major league front 0:21:50.316 --> 0:21:53.396 office was listening to what he was saying until these 0:21:53.436 --> 0:21:59.836 guys came along. Why have all this by dood, Bill odious, 0:21:59.916 --> 0:22:05.676 by what he's Andretten start the celebration. The athleticscept on 0:22:05.916 --> 0:22:11.596 my worst, the Oakland a people inside their front office 0:22:11.636 --> 0:22:15.836 had been reading Bill James without telling anyone. They didn't 0:22:15.836 --> 0:22:17.996 have as much money as the other teams, yet they 0:22:18.076 --> 0:22:20.956 won more games. I went to see the team to 0:22:20.996 --> 0:22:23.396 try to figure out how they did it. The answer 0:22:23.476 --> 0:22:25.796 was simply that they were taking Bill James's thinking out 0:22:25.836 --> 0:22:29.436 onto the field. The book I wrote about the Moneyball 0:22:29.836 --> 0:22:33.916 wasn't just about baseball. It was about expertise. How this 0:22:34.076 --> 0:22:36.436 new knowledge enabled you to run circles around the rest 0:22:36.476 --> 0:22:39.516 of baseball. He gets on base alone, Rocco, Do I 0:22:39.636 --> 0:22:44.636 care if it's a walk or hit? Pete? I do not. 0:22:45.956 --> 0:22:48.836 My book popularized what Bill James had led the Oakland 0:22:48.876 --> 0:22:52.196 A's to do. Then Brad Pitt popularized the book by 0:22:52.276 --> 0:22:54.876 making a movie out of it. In that version, Bill 0:22:54.956 --> 0:22:57.596 James wound up on the cutting room floor. In the movie, 0:22:57.636 --> 0:22:59.676 he shows up in just a single photo and a 0:22:59.756 --> 0:23:05.996 few lines. People are overlooked for a variety of biased 0:23:06.076 --> 0:23:12.836 reasons and perceived flaws age, years, personality, Bill James and 0:23:13.036 --> 0:23:17.516 Mathmax cut straight through that it wasn't that Bill James 0:23:17.636 --> 0:23:20.236 was completely unknown. I mean a lot of people knew 0:23:20.236 --> 0:23:23.156 who he was even before the movie came out. He'd 0:23:23.196 --> 0:23:26.516 had a cameo on The Simpsons. I made baseball as 0:23:26.596 --> 0:23:31.716 much fun as doing your Texans funny not true, opposite 0:23:31.756 --> 0:23:34.276 of true. But like a lot of people who fire 0:23:34.356 --> 0:23:37.236 the first shot, Bill was sort of left behind by 0:23:37.276 --> 0:23:40.996 the revolution. He was eventually hired by the Boston Red Sox, 0:23:41.356 --> 0:23:45.076 and he became woven into the game, and Moneyball became 0:23:45.116 --> 0:23:47.756 a shorthand for a new way of doing things in 0:23:47.916 --> 0:23:51.556 every corner of American life. It's being called moneyball for 0:23:51.676 --> 0:23:55.196 the restaurant industry. Will show you how big data analytics 0:23:55.356 --> 0:23:59.116 is transforming the way you experienced fine dining. Florida Senator 0:23:59.196 --> 0:24:02.756 Marco Rubio announced his campaign yesterday, and fundraisers are already 0:24:02.796 --> 0:24:06.516 calling him the Moneyball candidate. Tracking serial killers using math 0:24:06.596 --> 0:24:10.556 and statistics. It's kind of like Moneyball from there we 0:24:10.636 --> 0:24:15.836 got after you wrote Moneyball, then there was a Bill 0:24:15.916 --> 0:24:22.196 James of everything there was. I mean, there was somebody 0:24:22.356 --> 0:24:26.476 trying to apply my ways of thinking to every subject 0:24:26.556 --> 0:24:30.556 on earth. Did you find some of that interesting or 0:24:30.596 --> 0:24:32.516 did you think that it was a false analogy, that 0:24:32.596 --> 0:24:34.516 there really wasn't a way to do what you did 0:24:34.596 --> 0:24:37.316 with baseball, well, lots of other things. A lot of 0:24:37.356 --> 0:24:39.556 it seemed interesting, but I was always frustrated that I 0:24:39.636 --> 0:24:42.196 couldn't help with it. A lot of people would ask 0:24:42.276 --> 0:24:44.636 me to help with serious problems about things, and I 0:24:45.276 --> 0:24:48.596 know people people would ask what I thought about some 0:24:48.756 --> 0:24:52.396 cancer research they were doing, literally, and it's very you know, 0:24:52.516 --> 0:24:54.556 my parents die of cancer. I wish I could help here, 0:24:54.596 --> 0:24:56.876 but I don't know what the hell you're talking about. 0:24:57.236 --> 0:25:00.196 People wanted you to be an all purpose expert. Yes, 0:25:01.356 --> 0:25:05.716 they figure you crack baseball, you can crack cancer, well right, 0:25:08.756 --> 0:25:10.876 but he I didn't even crack baseball, at least to 0:25:10.956 --> 0:25:15.916 his way of thinking. Even an orderly universe alluded perfect understanding. 0:25:17.116 --> 0:25:20.756 For some reason, people couldn't accept that Bill's growing band 0:25:20.836 --> 0:25:23.436 of followers wanted to believe that he'd settled more questions 0:25:23.516 --> 0:25:34.876 than he actually had. I almost want to read you 0:25:34.956 --> 0:25:36.796 some of it, but I assume you kind of remember it. 0:25:37.516 --> 0:25:39.156 I sort of have to remember it. You sort of 0:25:39.196 --> 0:25:42.556 have to remember it. But I'm gonna read a paragraph 0:25:42.716 --> 0:25:45.716 just to get you back in the spirit. Okay, that's 0:25:45.836 --> 0:25:50.476 me thumbing through nineteen eighty eight Baseball Abstract. The Bill 0:25:50.556 --> 0:25:53.596 James of nineteen eighty eight is at his peak. He's 0:25:53.596 --> 0:25:56.636 got a publisher and sells lots of books. He's become 0:25:56.676 --> 0:25:59.236 a kind of guru, and he's about to tell his 0:25:59.356 --> 0:26:03.796 readers to piss off. He's done writing for them. And 0:26:03.876 --> 0:26:06.476 I only read one little passage because it's pretty great. 0:26:07.236 --> 0:26:10.236 But whereas I used to write one year jackass letter 0:26:10.316 --> 0:26:13.076