Solid Fool’s Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom

Iconoclastic analyst Bill James has written a new book that documents his latest thinking on everything from the quality, clutch ability, and streakiness of starting pitchers to a comprehensive listing of the worst teams in baseball history to his surprising views on the Transit Safety Administration, the demise of tipping, and the injustice of red-light cameras. This book is reminiscent of James' Baseball Abtracts from the 70s and 80s and even includes a reprint of one of his articles from that period. The book contains some 25 essays, some full of sabermetric breakthroughs and others with nary a statistic to be found.