Steve Blass on Bill James

A good thing about being in Oakland is listening to Lanny and Steve talk about Billy Beane's whole get-on-base philosophy.

Steve Blass plays dumb like he doesn't know what "a sabermetric" is and like he's never heard of OPS. C'mon Steve that's on the jumbotron. You can't score points by playing dumb - you just look dumb. Lanny speaks awkwardly on the subject, like a 65-year-old guy trying to use the slang of teenagers. He knows what the stuff is, but feels self-conscious talking about it.

Maybe Steve Blass hasn't read a book the last twenty years. He says this: "Bill James has done more to ruin baseball than any other living human being. He has put numbers in front of the game, replaced the game with numbers." Lanny lets out a huge "whoa" and remarks that he hoped they were taping this episode. Inning ends and they go to commercial.

Steve Blass calls it "cybermetrics" as we come back from commercial and he and Lanny get into it. Lanny obviously thinks Steve Blass is being outrageous, maybe even embarrassing himself. Lanny asks what numbers Steve Blass approves us and Steve answers: ERA, standings. Two innings ago, he said runs were the most important number. Two out of three is pretty good. He's not really an idiot, he just sounds like one sometimes.