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None of our sports is more obsessed with statistics than baseball. Hell, we're still inventing more and more ways to quantify and qualify players' performance.
There is lots of grumbling today about how all these statistics have been rendered meaningless by the Steroid Era.
But haven't baseball statistics always been meaningless? Of all our sports, baseball is the only one where the dimensions of the playing field aren't standardized. A home run in Yankee Stadium isn't necessarily a home run in Fenway Park, and vice versa.
You take Michael Jordan and all his teammates and have them play their home games in Cleveland instead of Chicago, and he puts up exactly the same stats. You take Alex Rodriguez and all his teammates and have them play their home games in Detroit, and his stats are very, very different.
So why is baseball so statistic-obsessed?
There is lots of grumbling today about how all these statistics have been rendered meaningless by the Steroid Era.
But haven't baseball statistics always been meaningless? Of all our sports, baseball is the only one where the dimensions of the playing field aren't standardized. A home run in Yankee Stadium isn't necessarily a home run in Fenway Park, and vice versa.
You take Michael Jordan and all his teammates and have them play their home games in Cleveland instead of Chicago, and he puts up exactly the same stats. You take Alex Rodriguez and all his teammates and have them play their home games in Detroit, and his stats are very, very different.
So why is baseball so statistic-obsessed?