Baseball and Politics?

Dan Fox reviewed the book Mind Game at the Hardball Times today. His review is generally positive but is interspersed with a few of his qualms. I've read other reviews on the book and while the consensus doesn't seem to be that it's an excellent book it seems to fall into the very good category.

Fox highlights the interesting topics that the authors of the book set forth and this one in particular caught my eye.

“Basebrawl”. An interesting analysis by Steven Goldman of the effect of the brawl between the Sox and Yankees on July 24, 2005, and how brawls affect teams generally, using the first list of fights I’ve seen, stretching from 1923 through 2004 and included in an appendix. This chapter and a sidebar studying the effect playing on the West Coast has on East Coast teams are the two bits of truly original research I found in the book.

Just like Fox I have never heard of a study of the effects of brawling on a team's psyche. My guess is that they don't have much long-term effect but create a more positive short-term effect. If anyone knows drop me a comment.

Now to the qualms that Fox has with the book. He says that the authors take political "swipes" at the right-wing throughout the book. It was something that he found to be a distraction. Why go there? I love to follow politics, economics, history and a whole host of other subjects but when it comes to my biggest love, baseball, I want to forget all that other stuff. Baseball is the ultimate escape for me where I can truly forget the most pressing concerns in my life and enjoy a few minutes or hours of solace. Politics by its very nature divides people and is just plain stressful.

This is something that I've noticed for years with Baseball Prospectus. They do take swipes at right-wingers. These swipes leave me with the impression that the "swipers" are elitist and sanctimonious. Who wants to read sanctimoniuos writing? Sanctimonious baseball writing can be tolerable at times but sanctimonious politcial writing has got to be the most nauseating writing around! It's one of the reasons that I have yet to pony up $39.95 to read BaseballProspectus.com and may end up being the reason I don't purchase Mind Game.