He has give us so many intuitive tools for analyzing baseball:
http://www.tangotiger.net/wiki/index.php?title=Defensive_Spectrum
Here he opines on the future of baseball regarding steroids and the Hall of Fame-as he says it comes down to 2 extreme positions:
"Well, I'm not asking people to set aside what's right and wrong. If you think there's a right and a wrong here, and you want to vote on that, that's great, I don't have a problem with that."
I like the way he puts that, right off the bat. I mean all the steroid scolds always just assume there is a clear right and wrong here-steroids are wrong, they are cheating, case closed. But this is not at all clear to me:
"But I'm saying, for sake of understanding, set aside what's right and what's wrong. History doesn't coalesce around a compromise. History coalesces only around an extreme position. And there are two extreme positions: (1) the steroid users can't go in, or (2) it doesn't matter. It's impossible for history to coalesce around the position that steroid users can't go in, because, frankly, there's already steroid users in [the Hall of Fame], and as time passes, more and more of us are going to be using more and more steroids for more and more things. It's impossible for history to coalesce around that position, therefore it has to coalesce around the other extreme position, that [steroid use] doesn't matter. And I would argue that [given] enough time, it isn't going to matter, and that all the guys we think are permanently banned, they're actually all going in."
http://www.sbnation.com/2014/1/9/5290850/bill-james-steroids-and-same-sex-marriage
James Brannon likens the point about '2 extreme positions' to the debate about gay marriage.
"I think this is a brilliant observation, and I immediately tried to think of other instances where this was true, where history coalesced around one of two extreme positions and rejected the compromise position. And it hit me right away that this was true of the gay marriage debate in the United States. The compromise position, that gay couples should be granted the same legal rights as married straight couples with regard to inheritance and hospital visitation and the like, but that we won't call it "marriage," that we'll call them civil unions or some such, or the federalist argument that gay marriage should be legal in California but not in Utah, has basically no traction. Anyone who holds that position is not on solid footing. And as more states and jurisdictions legalize same-sex marriage via the ballot box or judicial rulings, it seems obvious — has been obvious for a long time now — that history absolutely will not coalesce around the position that there won't be gay marriage in the United States. And so therefore there will be gay marriage in the United States."
Absolutely. This is also true of any number of issues like slavery and then segregation. On the other hand I can think of some unhappy compromises' like with abortion where nationally we've just agreed not to discuss it too much but at the state level we're seeing abortion clinics being closed completely across many red states.
Still, it's quite possible that this will turn out to be an issue more like gay marriage and segregation than abortion-or voting rights, alas.
" It was almost exactly a generation ago that Andrew Sullivan, writing in The New Republic, first argued for gay marriage as a superior alternative to "domestic partnerships." And while same-sex marriage isn't legal everywhere in America, it's fast becoming so. Too fast for some, not fast enough for others; but it is coming, even in Utah."
http://www.tangotiger.net/wiki/index.php?title=Defensive_Spectrum
Here he opines on the future of baseball regarding steroids and the Hall of Fame-as he says it comes down to 2 extreme positions:
"Well, I'm not asking people to set aside what's right and wrong. If you think there's a right and a wrong here, and you want to vote on that, that's great, I don't have a problem with that."
I like the way he puts that, right off the bat. I mean all the steroid scolds always just assume there is a clear right and wrong here-steroids are wrong, they are cheating, case closed. But this is not at all clear to me:
"But I'm saying, for sake of understanding, set aside what's right and what's wrong. History doesn't coalesce around a compromise. History coalesces only around an extreme position. And there are two extreme positions: (1) the steroid users can't go in, or (2) it doesn't matter. It's impossible for history to coalesce around the position that steroid users can't go in, because, frankly, there's already steroid users in [the Hall of Fame], and as time passes, more and more of us are going to be using more and more steroids for more and more things. It's impossible for history to coalesce around that position, therefore it has to coalesce around the other extreme position, that [steroid use] doesn't matter. And I would argue that [given] enough time, it isn't going to matter, and that all the guys we think are permanently banned, they're actually all going in."
http://www.sbnation.com/2014/1/9/5290850/bill-james-steroids-and-same-sex-marriage
James Brannon likens the point about '2 extreme positions' to the debate about gay marriage.
"I think this is a brilliant observation, and I immediately tried to think of other instances where this was true, where history coalesced around one of two extreme positions and rejected the compromise position. And it hit me right away that this was true of the gay marriage debate in the United States. The compromise position, that gay couples should be granted the same legal rights as married straight couples with regard to inheritance and hospital visitation and the like, but that we won't call it "marriage," that we'll call them civil unions or some such, or the federalist argument that gay marriage should be legal in California but not in Utah, has basically no traction. Anyone who holds that position is not on solid footing. And as more states and jurisdictions legalize same-sex marriage via the ballot box or judicial rulings, it seems obvious — has been obvious for a long time now — that history absolutely will not coalesce around the position that there won't be gay marriage in the United States. And so therefore there will be gay marriage in the United States."
Absolutely. This is also true of any number of issues like slavery and then segregation. On the other hand I can think of some unhappy compromises' like with abortion where nationally we've just agreed not to discuss it too much but at the state level we're seeing abortion clinics being closed completely across many red states.
Still, it's quite possible that this will turn out to be an issue more like gay marriage and segregation than abortion-or voting rights, alas.
" It was almost exactly a generation ago that Andrew Sullivan, writing in The New Republic, first argued for gay marriage as a superior alternative to "domestic partnerships." And while same-sex marriage isn't legal everywhere in America, it's fast becoming so. Too fast for some, not fast enough for others; but it is coming, even in Utah."
"I think the idea that same-sex marriage is inevitable, precisely because the alternative is practically and politically impossible, is something we've all sort of intuitively grasped, though perhaps only vaguely so. I would bet Bill James figured it out twenty years ago."
UPDATE: Another Bill James interview on steroids:
http://www.thebronxview.com/2009/07/23/bill-james-comments-on-steroids/
UPDATE: Another Bill James interview on steroids:
http://www.thebronxview.com/2009/07/23/bill-james-comments-on-steroids/
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