Books we still won't be reading, even if it's to our detriment

Steven Goldman is the unique example of a sabremetrician who bears, through his Yes Network byline, the implicit imprimatur of the Yankee establishment. Nearly all Yankee analysts (beat writers, announcers, sports radio hosts) are ignorant of, if not downright hostile to, the Jamesian revolution. Michael Kay, the face of Yankee punditry who believes in the sanctity of the RBI and stubbornly holds that wins are the most important barometer of a pitcher's effectiveness, is the clearest example of Yankee conservatism, but he is just one example among many reactionaries who dominate pinstripe media.

Given the culture of ignorance that hovers over River Avenue, it seems implausible that a committed sabremetrician like Goldman would be the featured writer for Yes's website. And yet there he is, more real than Michael Fishman has ever been.

Because we don't take his words lightly, this little nugget from his Yes bio took us by surprise: ""Forging Genius," Steve's biography of Casey Stengel is available at Amazon.com and a bookstore near you, as is "Mind Game," about the intellectual conflict between the Yankees and the Red Sox." (Emphasis added.) Intellectual conflict? It's pretty clear that those who report on the Yankees revel in being members of the old guard, but the philosophy of the front office has mostly been a mystery. So, what exactly does Goldman know? What does the book reveal?

We are steadfast in our refusal to read books about the Red Sox, especially those based on the '04 season, but we may need to check out a copy of "Mind Game" from the library. Or, Goldman could just reveal in his blog the inner-workings of the team's brain trust to those of us too scarred to relive the trauma of 2004. We suspect that he may need to do so quickly; it won't be long before Yes executives realize that they've hired a baseball heretic.