Disharmony: Baseball Scouting and the Politics of Abortion

Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 Disharmony: Baseball Scouting and the Politics of Abortion In the modern game of baseball the game can no longer claim to be completely won on the field. Instead, the game is now won on computers in dingy clubhouse rooms by number crunchers that would probably do better in industries such as finance or science. When looking at the revolution of sabermetrics (also known as performance scouting), or the statistical analysis of baseball data that drastically differed from the old-school visual-based method of scouting, the first thought to your mind is not a comparison of the conflict that surrounds the issue of abortion. But when one looks deeper into the numerical importance of baseball data in its initial years, you begin to see two competing schools of thought in the sport similar to two competing styles of boxing, political parties, or religions. But while some similarities may exist between the controversy of sabermetrics, as described in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, and that of abortion, this cannot mostly be explained by the theories presented in Kristin Luker’s Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, the controversy therein, and the differing world views presented. Luker’s theories presented in Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood describes the conflict between Abortion Rights and Anti-Abortion activists and their differing world views, which Luker claims goes much further than an argument over abortion. World views, as defined in Luker’s book, are “those parts of life we take for granted, never imagine questioning, and cannot envision decent, moral people not sharing” (Luker 158). It is when the abortion issue is questioned that Luker believes that, not just a simple stance on the issue comes under attack, that “an entire world view is under assault” (Luker 158). Luker goes on to explain that when people feel their world view assaulted, it is easy to see why either side seems so vindictive and heartless towards the other: not allowing themselves to concede that the other side consists of decent human beings is a tactic in distancing themselves from the fact that their opposition just might 1 Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 have a valid point (Luker 158-159). The world view of each side of the abortion conflict is then given considerable space in Luker’s work. She describes how each side’s belief is rooted in either traditional or progressive views of the roles women and the family play and the roles that religion plays for Anti-Abortion activists and intellect for Abortion Rights activists (Luker 161, 164, 167). Each side also differs in their definition of the sacredness of sex and their views of contraception and family planning (Luker 178, 184). Each side sees the other as a complete threat to their world view because their beliefs are so deep-rooted. And because these beliefs are so deep-rooted they have made their way into our two-party political system; one party advocating a limitation of access to the practice, the other advocating expanded access to abortion and a woman’s right to choose. While the issue of abortion in Luker’s work represents two world views of abortion that have little chance of reconciling with each other, the world views of the old-school baseball scouts and the sabermetricians are very reconcilable as both typically work together within the same organization and have a shared common goal. While old-school scouts have an visualbased methodology in scouting, as “seeing is believing”, for the best players for a team, the performance scouting of sabermetricians looks mainly at statistics to determine a players value for a team. Though these methods obviously differ, subscribers of each method have the same goal in mind: to win games. Michael Lewis’ Moneyball tells the story of these two world views and their first attempt to work side-by-side. What ensues is mass confusion on the part of the oldschool scouts and maddening frustration on the part of the sabermetricians. One thing to keep in mind is that both the old-school and the new-school were working for the same organization: the Oakland Athletics. While their world views differed they were both looking for the next round of successful prospects to add value to their team. In the case of abortion, however, one could never 2 Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 imagine Abortion Rights and Anti-Abortion activists working side-by-side in any manner as the goals of each is to either shut down abortion or expand the practice, respectively. This highlights the main difference between the conflict of the baseball scouts and the abortion activists as the end goals of each conflict represent a wide difference in reconcilability. Though the world view of the sabermetricians may at first have threatened the lifestyle and world view of the old-school scouts in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, Major League Baseball has put this threat to rest in finding a place for both ideologies, unlike the threat between the world views of abortion in Luker’s book. Lewis underlines this idea of performance scouting threatening the world view of the old-school scouts when writing some of Billy Beane’s ideas with his new strategy; “[Beane] flirted with the idea of firing all the scouts and just drafting the kids straight from Paul’s laptop” (Lewis 37). Lewis then writes of a sit down between both sides of the issue where a number of statistics were presented to the old-school scouts explaining “Decades of scouting experience are being rendered meaningless” (Lewis 32). Though performance scouting did represent a threat to the old-school scouts in 2003, the year Moneyball was published, this threat has since subsided, as the majority of Major League Baseball clubs have adopted both methodologies of scouting in their clubhouses. There is no denying that sabermetrics represented a real threat to the old-school scouts with the possibility of rendering their jobs obsolete, but, according to Lewis, Billy Beane had not set out to establish a truer method of baseball scouting, just to make “an inherently uncertain judgment, the future performance of a baseball player, a little less uncertain” (Lewis Location 4379). Billy Beane did not fire all the old scouts and hire a team of college educated economists and statisticians, but instead hired a team of bright young scholars and had them work side-by-side with the old- 3 Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 school scouts. With the issue of abortion presented by Luker the threat that each side presents to the other has never, and will never, diminish. Another reason Luker’s theories do not explain the differing world views of the two sides of baseball analysis in Moneyball is that the issue of abortion and the world views of AntiAbortion and Abortion Rights activists are mainly political and have much farther reaching consequences in America than do the analysis of baseball. Baseball’s scouting methodologies are practices that happen within a vacuum: people can choose to focus on or ignore the discrepancies of baseball scouting while issues like abortion have consequences that go much further into the daily political life of all Americans. This is because abortion is a much more nationally polarizing issue and continues to play a major role in America’s two-party system. Elections have been decided on this issue, protestors plant themselves outside of clinics to prevent women from getting an abortion, and doctors who perform the operation have even been shot by activists as a result for their strong opposition to the practice. Baseball, however, while there may be some similarities in the polarizing nature between the two scouting methodologies to that of abortion, only goes as far as the journalists and club owners within baseball’s inner circle. Fans have not protested the extensive use of statistics to scout future prospects, and old-school scouts have certainly not harmed anyone in the name of preserving their cause. The worst that has happened as a result of the rise of sabermetrics comes in the afterward to Moneyball as Lewis describes the backlash from other team’s general managers and various journalists following the publication of the book. Although Luker’s theories cannot completely explain the rise of sabermetrics described in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, some aspects of her theory can, as the world views of the oldschool scouts and the sabermetricians are so different that conflict does arise. In just looking at 4 Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 the upbringing of the average member of each camp the differences are quite stark. Old-school scouts are typically less educated former major or minor league players who have been around the game their entire lives since the earliest days of little league, while the sabermetricians more often than not have some sort of formal college education in an area such as math, statistics or economics. They also have most likely never played the game at a level above high school at best. These two facts alone form the foundation for the differing world views that go much deeper than the numbers, just as Luker describes in the subject of her book as going “much deeper than abortion”. The conflict of sabermetrics taking away the game of baseball from the old-school traditionalists of the game cannot mostly be explained by the theories found within Luker’s book about abortion activists. The only way Luker’s theories can explain the discrepancy between the methodologies of baseball analysis is that the world views of both sides represent two different upbringings that bring conflict with one another. Outside of this obvious discrepancy all other similarity falls away. Based on the reconcilability, the lack of a true threat, and short reach the issue has, the conflict between the old-school scouting methodology and sabermetrics cannot be explained by Kristin Luker’s theories on the conflict of abortion. The explanation for this could be that abortion is a more political matter than baseball scouting, but a more convincing answer for this is that abortion also deals in religion. While some may claim “baseball is a religion”, the role organized religion has played in the Anti-Abortion movement is undeniable. Conflicts have existed between religions, or between religious people and atheists, since its very inception thousands of years ago. With these religious beliefs abortion represents a matter of life and death; the same cannot be said of baseball scouting. To this day there are still fans, journalists and club managers who stubbornly cling to the traditional way of thinking about baseball and the 5 Joseph O’Brien ID#84102593 scouting of prospects and practice contempt prior to investigation of the new wave of sabermetrics. It will probably always be this way as sabermetricians are like a young progressive generation waiting for the conservative politics of their parents to die with them. But baseball in its current state shows otherwise: what exists now between the two ideologies of baseball, that did not at the time of Moneyball’s 2003 publication, is harmony. 6