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The
Diamond Appraised – The Book
“I told him he
should write a book about this stuff. He said he was thinking about it, which
is a step
forward from what he said the last time
I told him that, which was that he wasn’t
thinking about it.”
That’s Bill James writing about a
conversation we had during game 2 of the 1985 World Series. Yes, his friendly
nudges and encouragement were a factor. Within a few months of that
conversation Rangers’ pitching coach Tom House approached me about our doing a
book together, and I decided to give it a try. We got a book deal with
Macmillan, but it got off to a lousy start. I wanted to do a serious book and
House was in some sort of a contest to see how little he could do and still get
another book out there with his name on it. The book was in a stall, and it was
actually a relief to me when Macmillan pulled the plug on the book.
But the editor Jeff Neuman really liked
the book, and when he moved to Simon & Shuster as Senior Editor and
Director of Sports Books, he wanted to revive the book and work around House’s
lack of work ethic by having me write most of it. They would pay me double what
House would get and as the primary author my name would go first rather than
follow alphabetical form. The format of the book would give us independent
voices where I would write on a topic and then House and I would have a little
give-and-take on the subject.
The "give and take" idea
between Tom House and myself was always a good idea in
theory. The potential of the concept comes through very well in the early
chapter on "4000 Hits," and also the one on Knuckleballers, but it
pretty much vanishes thereafter. Again my co-author lost interest and pretty
much stopped working on the book. They finally had to hire a sportswriter to
work with Tom as his ghost writer just to get enough done to preserve some
semblance of the "give and take" premise. Most of Tom's
material was done under the gun at the last minute, which is why his sections
are so sparse, especially late in the book. A lot of his stuff I never even got to see
until the book was first being proofed. Rather than two-thirds of the book, I
ended up writing 90% with House contributing less than 50 pages. I was prepared
to write even more, but I could not do the "give and take" by myself.
The one thing I always regretted is
that House petered out before we got into the pitching sections which were, for
me, the most important part of the book. There was a huge opportunity for a
lively dialogue given our widely divergent views on enhancing the longevity of
pitchers. Within the Rangers organization House and I represented two very
different views on this subject. House firmly believed that with the special
conditioning program that he had for the Ranger pitchers that they could be
worked unusually hard without it affecting their short or long-term future. I
disagreed. While I valued an emphasis on conditioning as a way of promoting
better health in pitchers, I felt the evidence just wasn’t there to say it was
much more than a minor factor. I felt the key was to search for ways to reduce
the most dangerous workloads. Our ideas on the appropriate workloads for
various types of pitchers at certain points in their careers were light years
apart, and I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to more clearly delineate our
opposing views on this. As it is, I wrote over 100 pages in the pitching
section; House wrote 5. The little he did write I barely got to see in time to
write a few quick comments before we went to press.
I was not the only one disappointed
with Tom’s effort. Editor Neuman was so disenchanted with House’s contributions
that he apologized to me for pushing to include House when the book was
revived. Reviewers were also disappointed in House’s contributions. In the
midst of an overall positive review Tom’s mini-essays were panned as the
“weakness” of the book and “usually dull.” I know this is a bit hard on Tom,
but it is what it is and relevant to the story about the book and how it came
to its final form. On the positive side, he is the one who got the Macmillan
book deal, and he did make one really sterling contribution to the book -one
for which I will always be grateful. When House first proposed our doing a book
together, he said, “I already have a great title for the book: The Diamond
Appraised.” It was so perfect I laughed out loud with delight, and that
literally was the moment I made up my mind to give it a try. No other title was
ever considered, and it later became the name of my consulting business.
How’d it do? - It wasn’t what it was meant to be or could
have been, but there was still a lot to like. It got a very nice review from
Allen Berra of The New York Post who
called it “… the most impossible-to-put-down baseball book since The Bill James Historical Baseball
Abstract.” I was especially touched that it got a nice
reaction from Peter Hirdt, co-author of The
Elias Baseball Analyst. Because of my association with
I wrote most of the book in 1987 and
the copyright is 1989. A lot of stuff in the book is now dated and it was
intended for a short shelf life, but there are enough sections that are
sufficiently timeless that its relevance is still hanging in there nearly 20
years later. Rany Jazayerli said in a 2001 interview that what I covered in my
three pitching chapters was one of the five most important baseball studies
ever. All of the folks at The Baseball
Prospectus have been especially kind in their regard for the book. ESPN’s
Rob Neyer gave The Diamond Appraised an honorable mention for a place in the
“Essential Baseball Library.”
Which of the three editions is best? – Most fans of the book don’t realize that there was a third
edition. The Diamond Appraised sold
its Japanese translation rights and a very nice hardback edition was sold in
Japan. I personally like the American paperback best. As nice as the hard cover
was, there is an error in one paragraph where a whole line or two somehow
didn’t make it to print. That was corrected in the paperback edition, and I
also got to add a few worthy notes about Nolan Ryan in one of the pitching
chapters based on his accomplishments after the first printing. The Japanese
edition? What can I say? I have no idea if it is even a good translation. I
will say the construction and presentation of the book is very nice, including
one of those cloth bookmarks that attach to the binding. The picture provided
does not do justice to the Japanese book jacket. The drawing and the English
title are all done in some kind of ink that has a subtle jewel like reflection.
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