The Inside Game...Nov ‘03...Page 4

Paths to Glory: How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way, by Mark L. Armour and Daniel R. Levitt (Brassey’s, published in April 2003, $27.95 hardcover, ISBN: 157488560X)

A Book Review by Warren Wilbert

Mark Armour and David Levitt’s Paths to Glory is a comprehensive study of the fine art of putting together a ball club good enough to win it all. Wondering just how that is done and why some franchises are better at it than others apparently bothered these sabermetricians enough to cause them to ransack baseball’s past for some answers. And they found some.

Twelve franchises, spread across the 20th Century, get the full treatment in this thorough and richly researched study. GMs, scouts, owners, ball parks, managers, development cycles, players, trades, player evaluation and contractual negotiations - these, and more - are all put under the magnifying glass for clues that point to successful organizations, and above all, that lead to baseball’s ultimate prize, the world’s championship.

If you haven’t had Sabermetrics 101, look out. These fellows have availed themselves of all the bells and whistles baseball’s modern math provides as they work their way through the mounds of data they’ve amassed in researching this interesting though often maddening subject. Paths to Glory is drenched in statistical analysis, tables, graphs and comparisons between great, good, bad and absolutely lousy ball clubs. But to their credit, Armour and Levitt have gone out of their way to define terms and explain some of the more uncommon, albeit crucial concepts that underlie the careful examination teams like the Brooklyn Superbas, the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland Athletics are given.

Along the way these two baseball analysts take a searching look at the evolution of relief pitching, patterns in aging as a player’s career hits the sunset trail, ball parks and baseball environments, and a look at the work of Dr. Theodore Modis, "a physicist turned management science consultant," in the words of the authors. Some of these excursions into what may seem to be baseball esoterica appear, at first blush, like unnecessary tangents, but hold on. Armour and Levitt weave this information into the overall scheme of organizational structure and management and its effect on what happens out there on the diamond. This kind of stuff, it turns out, is essential, nay, sine qua non to winning baseball, and successful franchises sit up, take notice and go about their business accordingly.

There are several heroes to this piece, among them two Braves teams, one of them from Boston, the 1948 National League champions, and the other, Atlanta’s contemporary Braves, touted by the authors as an example of a modern baseball organization Braves’ competitors would do well to emulate. GM Schuerholz, guiding light behind the Braves’ consistent success, comes in for high marks regarding his management of Atlanta’s fortunes. Knowledgeable baseball people would hardly disagree.  The authors do not spare the klunkers.

Among a significant number of pleasant surprises that scrambled the standings in both leagues during the Deadball Era, the 1915 Phils and 1917 White Sox are singled out for special kudos, representative of heads-up front office management and skillful negotiating that brought enough talent together to crash the winner’s circle. There were others that might have been cited, including Comiskey’s 1906 Hitless Wonders, Detroit’s 1907-‘09 American League champions, the 1914 Miracle Braves, Wilbert Robinson’s 1916 Brooklyn club and the Boston Red Sox franchise, which managed to find ways and means to stay atop, or within striking distance of the AL’s frontrunners for most of the 1910’s. And there were teams that finished higher than they should have, equally alert in board rooms and afield. Washington’s 1913-‘14 Senators and the 1919 Cincinnati Reds would be cases in point.

But the authors settled on the Philadelphia National League and Chicago American League teams as their exemplars. The Phillies especially were well chosen as a sterling example of a franchise that moved to the head of the class by bringing together outstanding talent in key off-season maneuvering, installing a manager who was "just right" for his unique situation, and fine-tuning the roster so that every phase of the game was upgraded to the extent that the two outstanding players on the team, both of whom enjoyed career years, could lead the club to victory. Those two ball players, by the way, Pete Alexander, known by one and all, and Gavvy Cravath, recognized as one of baseball’s premier outfielders during the Deadball Era, headed up a strong, though not overpowering roster. Armour and Levitt tell that story both in depth and with some clever insights based on - you guessed it - the sabermetric numbers.

Much as it might have hurt Mark Armour, a self-confessed Red Sox fan, he and partner Levitt put the 1930s Bosox on the griddle, searing them at one point with: "In retrospect, the notion that the 1936 Red Sox had a chance to compete with the Yankees (World Champions that year) is laughable." (pp. 123 and 125) That retrospective judgment comes after a thorough dissection of the Tom Yawkey front office, his fading stars and the mismanagement of Yawkey’s millions despite his good intentions. The Red Sox’ fatal flaw? Triple A talent in the major leagues. And that, after  all, is a factor up there among the top two or three that ultimately determines championships. Failure to provide top drawer talent inevitably consigns a ball club to baseball’s hinterlands. Even those who know next to nothing about Sabermetrics have figured that out.

One puzzlement: in a book that examines franchise management so carefully, how did those New York teams escape scrutiny? No McGraw? No Rupert? No Steinbrenner? No Fred Wilpon? No Stengel or "Leo the Lip?" Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to encounter a book about baseball that doesn’t stumble all over those Big Apple franchises as it discusses success (and excess) in the world of baseball.

Despite, or quite possibly because of the big sabermetric footprints all over this fascinating book, baseball readers will have a real adventure ahead of them in this knowing look at the white collar machinations of baseball’s front office and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in its endless pursuit of championship laurels... Enjoy!