Has it been almost five full months since the last ICFBN? My apologies. But at least I get to come back with one of my favorite finds yet. Behold, Touching Second: The Science of Baseball, from Hall of Famer Johnny Evers:
Internet Christmas for Baseball Nerds, Part XXXIV
It’s an in-depth manual about baseball from 1910, and it attempts to explain how winning teams are built, what a manager does, and the importance of the catcher, among other things. But I’m geeked out on the proto-UZR sections:
If you evers get the chance to tinker around with this section of the book, it’s fascinating. Over a hundred years later, we’re still arguing about defensive statistics, but the leading metrics in the field are complex versions of what Evers was writing about before World War I.
If I’m going to waste the afternoon on this when I really don’t have the time to, the least I can do is drag some of you down with me.
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