The Will Leitch Experience

I’m doing some book research right now, about why it makes me sad that sabermetrics has taught me that childhood hero Willie McGee wasn’t actually as great a player as I remember, and I came across this Larry Stone column about how baseball players themselves react to advanced statistics.

I can’t believe I’d never seen this quote before.

I once asked Willie McGee, then with the Giants, about some statistical anomaly in his résumé — an uncommonly high average in day games, if I recall.

“I don’t know about that,” he said dismissively. “I ain’t no Bob James.”