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Actually, I believe it's called "The Last Word" -- that page of nonsense at the back of the Toronto Sun. Today, noted baseball authority Steve Simmons stoops to new depths in his "review" of an already-notorious title:

J.P. Ricciardi has not accomplished enough in baseball to have a book written about him. Not yet anyway.

But if you want to better understand the Blue Jays general manager -- who remains a local curiosity -- there is required reading available.

The new book is called Moneyball, The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and any day now it should be in bookstores, explaining the quirky ways of Ricciardi, if not necessarily by name.



Using that tried-and-true journalistic technique of "guilt by association," Simmons takes everything in the book he doesn't like about Billy Beane, exaggerates it and applies it to J.P.:

In fact, after reading excerpts of Moneyball, it is now clear why Ricciardi all but wiped out the Blue Jays scouting department over the past two winters.

He has little use for the old way of finding ball players. Your eyes tell you only what you see, but a computer compiles statistical data. It can break down a player far better than an old ex-ball player who sits in the stands with a pen and paper and radar gun, driving an old, beatup car from town to town.


The tiniest bit of research would have told Simmons that Ricciardi doesn't use a computer, which is why he hired Keith Law to provide statistical input. For more than a decade, J.P. was the guy with the radar gun, and he reached the top of the scouting profession. It's hard to believe the "quirky curiosity" turned his back on his entire illustrious career by considering effective new ideas.

Simmons pines for a return to his father's baseball. There are other things sorely missed about the "good old days," like intelligent, articulate Red Smith columns, instead of this pile of manure.
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Gerry - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 09:22 AM EDT (#102108) #
You left out the knife in the back from the last sentence......

"In other words, you pass on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter when they become available. Which goes to show, there is still some wisdom in conventional wisdom. When the computers start running baseball, it's time to give up on the game forever."

Nothing like an exception to the rule to prove the rule is bunk.
_Mick - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 10:23 AM EDT (#102109) #
I don't know anything about this Steve Simmons character, but I think he's absolutely right about computers changing the way the profession works, and not necessarily for the better.

Who doesn't long for the days of scratch pads, typewriters, bluelines and linotype pressses?

Once reporters and other journalists started using tape recorders, it removed the need to pay attention and to hear nuance. Once they started using computers, it removed the need for careful thought before writing. Once they started filing stories electronically, my God, that took them out of the collegial and professional learning experience that comes in the atmosphere of the newsroom.

Once reporters stopped trusting their ears and relying on tape recorders, stopped working together in a room and instead working with people in other newsrooms online, stopped having the chance for a visceral, gut reaction that comes only in holding an ink-stained, blue-penciled broadsheet and instead started sending stories directly to copyeditors by e-mail ...

The real feel and truth of journalism went away. The profession has changed, and not necessarily for the better.

P.S. I'm gonna think hard about sending a version of this post to the Sun as a Letter to the Editor, but I'd guess they don't appreciate the fact that their information is available for free to someone in Dallas.
_Mick - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 10:24 AM EDT (#102110) #
P.S. for the irony-impaired ...
Journalism has, in fact, changed for the better. That was kind of the point.
_Shane - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 10:25 AM EDT (#102111) #
When it comes to dealing with fans and the press, you'd like to think the head of professional sports team would take you seriously, and value you're opinions without dimissing your questions, no matter how silly they sometimes might sound. That should flow both ways.

If J.P. Ricciardi soured on Baker's "Rain Man" column last summer, he'd love this one a little more. Numb.
_Ryan - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 11:19 AM EDT (#102112) #
I'm surprised Simmons read the book. Afterall, the print isn't big and there aren't many pictures.

Simmons is one of those writers who you could explain sabermetrics to until you're blue in the face and you still wouldn't get anywhere. When I've E-Mailed him about a particular topic, the typical response is one of his patented one-liners that he fills his Sunday column with. He doesn't take anyone with a differing viewpoint seriously, no matter how valid that viewpoint may be.
Gerry - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 11:19 AM EDT (#102113) #
Before you rush to send anything to the editor, Simmons likes to be controversial. He would take it as an honour if you write to complain.
_Chuck Van Den C - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 12:32 PM EDT (#102114) #
I'm surprised Simmons read the book.

Do you honestly believe he read it?

I'd say there's at least as good a chance that he simply skimmed it, found the appropriate passages to quote and wrote his article, driven by his anti-Ricciardi agenda.

The Toronto Sun deserves Steve Simmons. I can't imagine a better pairing of newspaper and writer.
_Chuck Van Den C - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 06:09 PM EDT (#102115) #
Steve Simmons excerpt: In other words, you pass on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter when they become available.

Tracy Ringolsby
excerpt: How does a team find a Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez instead of wasting a high pick

Is there an article zero out there somewhere serving as the basis for all the knock offs?
Gitz - Friday, May 16 2003 @ 06:43 PM EDT (#102116) #
Mick,

Are you saying journalism itself has changed for the better or that the tools for producing it have? Those are two different items.
Craig B - Sunday, May 18 2003 @ 03:30 AM EDT (#102117) #
The craft of journalism is the craft, I don't think it's changed much at all. The actual product, what the man in the street gets and has access to, has changed almost immeasurably, and immeasurably for the better. While it may stylistically be different (but check out a newspaper of the 20s, 40s, or 60s... the purple prose! Ugh...) the depth and richness of content is light years ahead of anything available even twenty years ago when I was just starting to become a consumer of journalism.
_Mick - Monday, May 19 2003 @ 04:16 PM EDT (#102118) #
Gitz, j'accuse ... leading the witness.

Tools for production affect (and effect) quality of product. (Hence the word "product-ion.")

I would say that the tools have improved immensely and the possibility, even probability, of improved product has heightened enormously. Of course, along with that comes the extra detritus that is the world of self-publishing. Uh, like blogging ...
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