I mean, if I was ridiculously good at my job and other people thought I sucked at it, which made my life easier, but I still got paid the same, I'd rather have an easy life and more money

though I don't think calling them idiots is necessary since most of them come for attention anyways....

I was more referring to the general attacks against the casual fans that go to the games, the ones that do the wave, that cheer when the score board tells them to, that kind of stuff......

like I said, not a big deal just an observation that I've noticed.

is the sheer inability to understand the reason why people try their hand at sabermetrics and trying to create new baseball stats.

Professional baseball teams exist for two reasons, depending on how you feel that day. They exist to 1. Make money and 2. Win baseball games. Sabermetrics as a study is trying to use math to find a better way to do both. Stats like OPS and park factors and the RC formulas were created to figure out who was helping the offense the most. This has led into other stats, like Graham's tRA, which in a more advanced way tries to do the same thing, with the eventual goal of a perfect understanding of the way baseball works. To me, that's a much greater mark of fandom then trying to get to the park every day - it shows that in your spare time, the question "Why does a baseball offense/defense/pitcher work/not work" pops into your head. The point is that this all leads into finding better ways to win more games.

The second half of the equation is money, which is exactly what stats like VORP are made for. Being able to figure out where your money is best spent tends to be an underrated aspect of American life - it's good to know that our national media hasn't figured this out yet.

I won't pretend that I know how to do this type of analysis to nearly the level of detail of Jeff or Graham or Matthew, but I like to think that I understand what the end product is . To me, that's the key thing in the end - do I understand the end product of the work. I try my best to occasionally undertake stupid little small sample studies that people have probably already done, but those are just for my own curiosity more than anything. Basically, the article has espoused every negative aspect of looking at the game from the idiot fans' perspective.

And lets be honest here - when I go to Safeco or Angel Stadium or Petco (YAY COMING UP!), I have no intention of looking at Erik Bedard and thinking "Damn that's three wins above average right there, bitch!" I'm thinking "Come on Erik, strike this guy out!" And yes, I have both a beer and either nachos or a hot dog in front of me.

Okay, well, that's good.