Time Fades Away

Cause you know how time fades, time fades away

You know how time fades away

- Neil Young, Time Fades Away

Bill James recently responded to two questions on the "Hey Bill" section of Bill James Online (and you really should spend $3 a month for access to everything on his site), that touch on issues we've often discussed, (1) how memory and the passing of time impacts our evaluation of people and events and (2) how changing standards impact our evaluation.   While Bill is answering questions specific to baseball, his responses, as they often do, apply much more broadly to how we think about and discuss history.

The first question was why the Baseball Writers Association rejected electing Johnny Mize and Jim Bunning to the Hall of Fame, though both were eventually selected by the Veteran's Committee; Mize in 1981 and Bunning in 1996.  Mize and Bunning's careers were not long ago, the former from 1936 to 1953, the latter from 1955 to 1971.  James' response is they were not elected early because they did not meet the HOF standards of the time, though by today's baseball analytical standards they are clearly qualified.

But the essential point here is that the way of evaluating players in that era was COMPLETELY different.  It was entirely about meeting standards--a process that worked 80% of the time, but failed in some cases.  The questions of "How many games did he win for his team?" or "How much better was he than an average player?" or "How much better was he than a replacement player" or "What was his effective winning percentage?" . ... those type of questions absolutely were never asked.  They were zero percent of the process.  There was no understanding that you COULD evaluate players in that way, and there was no one calculating how players would rank if you DID evaluate them that way.  It couldn't be done; the background research had not been done to make it possible to do that.  

 

Prejudice against Mize based on personal factors didn't have anything at all to do Mize not being elected.  What it was, rather, is that the entire process by which we now evaluate players, and by which we now recognize Mize to have been a great player, simply did not exist at the time that he was on the ballot, and he was not recognized as a great player.  He was thought of as being the way we think now about Carlos Delgado or Mark Teixeira or Tino Martinez or Mike Sweeney or Ryan Howard or Adrian Gonzalez--and don't get me wrong; some of those guys may deserve Hall of Fame selection, too, when all the dust settles, but he was thought of the way that we think of those players.  

 

Bunning is essentially the same; he is not an obvious Hall of Famer in terms of meeting the traditional standards by which players were evalauted before sabermetrics.  The number one identifier of greatness for a starting pitcher before sabermetrics was winning 20 games.  The number of 20-win seasons by a pitcher is a very, very, VERY good predictor of Hall of Fame selection before 1980, and somewhat after.  Bob Lemon is in the Hall of Fame because he won 20 games 7 times--period.  Catfish is in the Hall of Fame because, in addition to some other selling points, he won 20 games five straight times.  That's all it is; there isn't anything more complicated than that.   

The second question was about Pete Rose and Willie Mays.  In response to another question on players who got the most out of their talent, James singled out Willie Mays and two other players as uniquely getting over their career 90% of what they were capable of.  The followup question asked whether Pete Rose could be considered in the same category - while less talented, he got a lot out of what he had.  Bill rejected the premise of the question.

Well. . .I think it misses something.  Rose was unique.   There is no other Pete Rose.  He not only hustled, he made a great SHOW out of hustling.  He RAN to the batter's box, running all out, as hard as he could run in that 60-foot sprint between the on-deck circle and the batter's box.  He RAN to first base when he walked--HARD.  Top speed.  He ran to the dugout at the end of the inning; he ran to his position at the start of the inning.  

 

There were other elements to his uniqueness.  He had a philosophy of competitiveness that he talked about and tried to share with others.  I remember one thing he said, "My Dad gets angry when a football player calls for a fair catch."   He charged into Ray Fosse full speed BECAUSE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DO THAT.  

 

He came to represent a set of values, a set of expectations, and he was, before his fall, very widely admired because of that.   It's impossible to explain to a younger reader, because the reference points have disappeared.   It's like this story.   William F. Buckley once organized a huge treasure hunt game for his children, in which he took the family's silverware and much of their china and buried it on the family's island property, I think on Martha's Vinyard but it may have been some other Island.  He did that one weekend, planning the Treasure Hunt for the next weekend, but that week a hurricane moved through, and tore the island apart, throwing around millions of tons of sand and completely re-designing the coast line.  They were never able to find the family's silverware and china.   Buckley's wife was not pleased.  

 

It's like that; there was a hurricane that moved through Rose's life, and all of the reference points to what he had once been were destroyed.   

 

Rose was a unique, one-of-a-kind player.   Willie Mays was a unique, one-pf-a-kind player.  Do they have certain traits in common?  Sure.   But were they essentially the same?  Definitely not.   They were both unique.  They were much more different than the same.  

Bill doesn't actually answer the question asked which focused on getting the most out of your talent and abilities.  But what he does reference is how memory changes our perception, particularly if you weren't there at the time.  I remember the Pete Rose discussed in the first two paragraphs.  If you don't what you are more likely to remember is the gambling scandal and his suspension and a lot of questionable behavior and bad judgment since his banning. 

One aspect of Hey Bill I particularly enjoy is that his responses are stream of consciousness.  It is evident he does not revise, edit, or spellcheck his responses.  You are hearing what is on his mind, even if it is sometimes not directly on point, or wanders off halfway through the response.  No matter what he is saying, or how he says it, the responses are always interesting, even when he is in his Jamesian gruff or dismissive mode.

As I get older I see the old guideposts and common references fade away.  What I've experienced is no longer the common experience.  Historical or cultural references I could make 20 or 30 years ago and expect a broad spectrum of people to recognize have disappeared.  The result is my thinking context is fundamentally different from someone a generation or more younger.  It's the same process every generation goes through as it ages.

---------------------------

James full response on Bunning/Mize question:

I think you are not processing how baseball careers were evalauted at that time.  Mize would have hit the ballot about 1958, 1959, sometime in there.  In that era, and for 30 years after that, players were evaluated by whether or not they met STANDARDS.  The absolute standards of Hall of Fame accomplishment were 500 homers and 3,000 hits (and 300 wins for pitchers.)  Mize being essentially a power hitter, the central test for him was whether he had hit 500 homers.  He didn't get CLOSE to 500 homers, winding up with .. ..what was it, 359 or something.  Not checking the details as I go.  He didn't get close to 3,000 hits.  

 

There were other standards that were important as well, of course--a .300 batting average, winning batting championships, winning MVP Awards, holding  major records, and playing for championship teams.  

 

Mize was close to DiMaggio in terms of Home Runs and career length, and not terribly far behind him in batting average, but DiMaggio was a completely different animal; he had won three Most Valauble Player Awards, was a great defensive player and had been a key figure on many championship teams.   Mize was not a GREAT defensive player, had not won any MVP Awards and was not a key figure on any championship teams, although he was a spear carrier on a couple of Yankee teams at the end of his career.  His image was badly hurt by the phenomenon of the 1947 New York Giants, who hit more home runs than any team in history up to that point--which was a very well known fact at the time--but had finished fourth.  The idea was that "they're not really great players; they're just guys who hit a bunch of cheap home runs in the Polo Grounds, where it was less than 300 feet down the foul lines."  

 

But the essential point here is that the way of evaluating players in that era was COMPLETELY different.  It was entirely about meeting standards--a process that worked 80% of the time, but failed in some cases.  The questions of "How many games did he win for his team?" or "How much better was he than an average player?" or "How much better was he than a replacement player" or "What was his effective winning percentage?" . ... those type of questions absolutely were never asked.  They were zero percent of the process.  There was no understanding that you COULD evaluate players in that way, and there was no one calculating how players would rank if you DID evaluate them that way.  It couldn't be done; the background research had not been done to make it possible to do that.  

 

Prejudice against Mize based on personal factors didn't have anything at all to do Mize not being elected.  What it was, rather, is that the entire process by which we now evaluate players, and by which we now recognize Mize to have been a great player, simply did not exist at the time that he was on the ballot, and he was not recognized as a great player.  He was thought of as being the way we think now about Carlos Delgado or Mark Teixeira or Tino Martinez or Mike Sweeney or Ryan Howard or Adrian Gonzalez--and don't get me wrong; some of those guys may deserve Hall of Fame selection, too, when all the dust settles, but he was thought of the way that we think of those players.  

 

Bunning is essentially the same; he is not an obvious Hall of Famer in terms of meeting the traditional standards by which players were evalauted before sabermetrics.  The number one identifier of greatness for a starting pitcher before sabermetrics was winning 20 games.  The number of 20-win seasons by a pitcher is a very, very, VERY good predictor of Hall of Fame selection before 1980, and somewhat after.  Bob Lemon is in the Hall of Fame because he won 20 games 7 times--period.  Catfish is in the Hall of Fame because, in addition to some other selling points, he won 20 games five straight times.  That's all it is; there isn't anything more complicated than that.   

 

Bunning won 20 games only one time.   There are other standards, there were other standards that were relevant to Hall of Fame selections 30 years ago, but Bunning's 224-184 career won-lost record is not really of a Hall of Fame standard.  I would guess that MOST starting pitchers with records similar to that are not in the Hall of Fame.  (Dennis Martinez, 245-193; Frank Tanana, 240-236; Luis Tiant, 229-172, George Mullin, 227-196; Mel Harder, 223-186; Paul Derringer, 223-212; Hooks Dauss, 222-182; Jerry Reuss, 220-191.)   Bunning never pitched for a championship team, and was badly hurt by the collapse of the 1964 Phillies, in the same way that Mize was hurt by the 1947 Giants.  

 

It was NOT prejudice.  It was not.  The processes by which these players are now recognized as great players simply did not exist, or carried no weight in the discussions.  There was a different process of recognizing greatness.  By THAT process, Mize and Bunning fell short.