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Baseball requires both skill and luck, and players and coaches have spent decades learning to master the first and take advantage of the second. The mysterious alchemy of skill and luck, in which even the best major league teams seldom win two-thirds of their games, has led notable baseball figures to reach varying conclusions. Branch Rickey, a pioneering executive whose many innovations included statistical analysis, modern training, and player development, determined that "Luck is the residue of design," while New York Yankees pitcher Lefty Gomez, a Hall of Famer, said simply, "I'd rather be lucky than good."
From the moment Henry Chadwick popularized baseball's box score -- the distilled result of art, science, skill, and luck at work -- millions have studied and processed the tiny printed figures daily. Resourceful number crunchers moved on to sabermetrics, and the extensive interactive online box score continues to feed some fans' insatiable quest for data. |