What Do Blood and Baseball Have in Common? Bill James

We’re quite fond of Bill James in these parts. The baseball-stats guru and sabermetrics pioneer brought a level of scientific analysis to baseball that has changed the game. He’s appeared on this blog a number of times, including a Q&A in which he fielded your baseball questions. So you might be interested to know that James is now trying his hand at another field: crime writing. And he brings to it the same scientific zeal. His latest book, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence, traces the roots of our fascination with crime all the way back to the 1600’s. In the modern age, James offers a detailed analysis of villains and victims including O.J. Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey.