[His Own Bad Self]

"No matter how it is that your mind works, baseball reaches out to you. If you're an emotional person, baseball asks for your heart. If you are a thinking man or a thinking woman, baseball wants your opinion. Whether you are left-brain or right-brain, Type A or Type Z, whether your mind is bent toward mathematics or toward history or psychology or geometry, whether you are young or old, baseball has its way of asking for you." - Bill James

Baseball always has something to offer us. It offers us its past, its present, and its future. We see the past in sepia-toned photos, handlebar mustaches, retired numbers, and plaques in a Cooperstown museum. We see the present in high definition, in multiple millions and billions of dollars, in the MLB Network and Extra Innings, in the joy of a summer day out at the yard. But how do we see the future?

Of all the joys to be found in a simple game, the anticipation of watching baseball's unscripted drama play out is one of its greatest...