This was where Reep differed from another outsider who attempted to analyze his sport: Bill James, the baseball statistician whose work—as made famous in the film Moneyball—went on to influence Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s, the Boston Red Sox and the entire game of baseball. For James, the point was to take the numbers and find out what truth they contained, what patterns emerged, what information could be extracted that might change the way we think about the game.
