Forget the one about the angels and the head of a pin. They are dealing with the true mysteries of life here in an air-conditioned conference room at Loyola University. Mysteries like why lefties hit a baseball better than righties.
Larry Lynn, an eager young freelance writer from Tampa and loyal member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), sits before a microphone, offering an explanation. His conclusions, dealing with left brain- right brain theories, are controversial. His methods, to some in the audience, are suspect. Is it really fair, asks one inquisitor, to compare a number buoyed largely by the batting averages of left-handed outfielders with a number weighted down by the averages of right-handed ”defensive specialists” playing the infield?
Bill James from Kansas, the man behind `The Bill James Baseball Abstract,` the man who more than anyone has popularized the statistical analysis of baseball, looks on. So does Don Zminda, an Evanston mail carrier who has recorded every single pitch of every single White Sox game this season, and so do about 100 more of the 469 SABR members gathered in Chicago for the group`s annual convention.
Then Ron Liebman walks in, wearing a purple shirt and a leisure suit the same shade of green as the left field wall at Fenway Park. And suddenly, something in the room changes.
In the air-conditioned conference room at Loyola, a father turns to his son and whispers, ”Remember the guy I told you about, the guy who knows everything?”
His son points at Ron Liebman. The father nods. The Ron Liebman. From Flushing, New York.
Some SABR members say this man Ron Liebman has forgotten more facts about the game and its players in his 42 years than they have ever learned. Other SABR members disagree. They say Ron Liebman doesn`t forget.
”I know the answers to more trivia questions than any guy in the place,” Liebman says when approached later at the SABR barbeque. ”I`m not bragging,” he adds quickly. ”I`m just telling you the way it is.”
After the presentation on ”Why Lefties Hit Better,” Liebman`s turn comes. He will discuss ”Unique Baseball Statistics.” The crowd murmurs in anticipation.
Liebman steps to the microphone, pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and clears his throat. ”What I`ve done,” says Liebman in a high-pitched nasal drone of the type usually confined to several boroughs of New York City, ”is find some unique facts relating to statistics that might not be well known.”
Then he is off. Off on a litany of relief pitchers who relieved in 5 consecutive games, teams that swatted 7 home runs in a single game, players who donned a uniform for championship teams in three different cities.
”That`s something most people are unaware of,” Liebman interjects after he rattles off a particularly arcane chestnut, or, ”That`s never been done by anybody else,” or, ”That`s unusual.”
This informal talk is only a warm-up for Liebman. A few minutes of impressive but relatively meaningless practice swings, like Hank Aaron tossing up baseballs and slugging them in a wheat field. It doesn`t really prove anything. The real test starts later in the evening, when the qualifying round of the SABR trivia contest begins.
Liebman has come to 13 previous SABR national conventions; in those 13 years he has acquired something of a reputation for his knowledge, and for more besides.
John Horne, a retired banker from Needham, Mass., attending his first SABR convention, heard of Liebman from friends who met him at the `84 convention in Providence, R.I. ”They came back and said, `This guy Liebman is unbelievable,”` Horne recalls. ”He`s worth the price of admission.” Another veteran SABR member`s scouting report on Liebman: ”He can`t find his way to the cafeteria, but he can answer any baseball question.”
Liebman became a baseball fan at age 7, when his uncle Isadore told him stories of Joe DiMaggio`s record 56-game hitting streak of 1941. With a bent for numbers and with his interest pricked, Liebman soon was poring over old box scores, searching for examples of the never before and the never since.
By the time Liebman was in his late 20s, he realized his interest in baseball set him apart from the people around him.
”I would talk to people in my office and they would just look at me like I was crazy,” Liebman recalls. ”If something unique happened, they didn`t care.”
On a vacation to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1972, Liebman met one of the charter members of SABR and joined the organization that year.
At the time, SABR was a tight-knit group of fewer than 100 members, most of whom were avid students of the American pastime. In the years since, SABR has grown to more than 6,000 members whose special interests range from biographical research to ball parks to statistical analysis. Some SABR members pay their $20 annual dues merely to receive occasional SABR publications;
others take a deeper interest in the game, spending their spare time taking rubbings from the gravestones of former major leaguers or recording detailed information from games and feeding the data into computers. And a few SABR members approach the warning track of normalcy.
”Baseball exists to be enjoyed,” adds Bill James, whose 1986 edition of his ”Baseball Abstract” sold more than 100,000 copies. ”The way a particular fan enjoys the game may be unlike the way you or I enjoy it, but that`s none of our business.”
In 1974 SABR staged its first informal trivia quiz at the national meeting in Philadelphia. Liebman enjoyed it; he won.
For the next several years, SABR members would flex their trivia muscles in small groups that would meet to ask questions among themselves during breaks in the national meetings. In 1981 the national meeting was held during the baseball strike. On the afternoon the group had been scheduled to attend a baseball game, Liebman remembers, about 40 or 50 SABR members began playing trivia.
From the 1982 SABR national convention on, the trivia quiz became an organized team event. Liebman`s team won that first year, and again in 1984. He also won individual trivia quizzes at New York regional meetings in 1984 and 1986.
Liebman, a senior statistician who compiles data on gas and electric meters, fuel oil and air conditioners for the New York City Housing Authority, reads box scores from 3 or 4 newspapers a day to keep abreast of new baseball feats. The New York Mets play their home games only a 5-minute drive from where he lives, but Liebman cares little for actually watching the sport.
”Baseball,” he says, ”I find a boring sort of sport, the way it`s played on the field.”
”In my case, I`m attracted by the numbers.”
There is talk here at the Chicago convention that perhaps Liebman has passed his prime. Last year, at the SABR national in Oakland, Liebman went into the final round of trivia and missed two early questions in a row. ”They said his mind reeled,” recalled one SABR member. ”He was not fit to play.” After that, Liebman and his team spent the rest of the game trying to close the gap. They never did.
”Maybe as you get older you lose something,” offered another Liebman-watcher. ”Maybe it`s time for someone else to take over.”
Liebman says he wants to win one more SABR national trivia contest, then retire as champion. But after last year`s loss, Liebman is guarded in his predictions, saying he has little chance to win this year`s quiz. He is having a difficult time even scraping together a team. The only teammate he has lined up for certain by Friday afternoon is his best friend Ted DiTullio, a New Jersey SABR member whose father carved the gravestones of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
”It`s reached the point where people no longer want to join my team,”
Liebman laments. ”They form their own teams to try to knock me off.”
A team made up of Pete Palmer, a heavy-hitter from the Boston area, and three other solid trivia players has been formed. The nucleus of the team that beat Liebman`s team in Oakland last year will also be back to defend the title. And then there is a team headed by Scott Flatow.
Flatow, a 20-year-old college kid from Brooklyn, with flaming red hair and a photographic memory, has styled himself as the successor to Liebman`s throne. Flatow says he won 200 New York sports phone ”Baseball Quickie Quizzes” in a span of 3 months when he was 14. Since then he has not stopped studying, absorbing baseball record books that he pages through in his mind.
Liebman says he first heard of Flatow when he got a call a few years ago warning that a new trivia expert was gunning for him. The call was from Flatow. ”He said, `I`m gonna whip your butt, Ron,” claims Liebman. ”You think you`re the greatest in the country.”`
Eventually, the rivalry cooled. The pair became civil if not chummy. But Flatow stayed away from SABR trivia contests until now.
”I waited this long because I wanted to be an unknown entity,” Flatow explains. ”I didn`t want anyone to know what I know.”
On Friday night, Bob Davids, the man who in 1971 convened 15 other baseball fans in Cooperstown to found SABR, passes out a written trivia quiz to pare a field of more than 30 teams down to 4 semifinalists. The team that won last year`s contest scores 91 out of a possible 100 points. Liebman`s team, rounded out by Bill James and Ron Gabriel, ties Pete Palmer`s by scoring 90 on the written test. Two more teams tie with a score of 87; they will play off for the fourth spot.
Flatow is not among them. Somehow his team managed only an 82 on the quiz. There is talk among Flatow`s teammates of correct answers being changed, of the 89 points that should have been. Mostly, there is talk of next year.
The next night, Saturday, the semifinal round begins. Now the teams compete two at a time, with Davids asking the questions to each team in turn. Missed questions can be answered for double points by the other team.
In the first semifinal, the defending champs bury a team of SABR members from Alexandria, Va., Goshen, Ky., Washington, D.C., and Birmingham, Mich., by a score of 54 to 23. The next semifinal will be closer.
The first question goes to Liebman`s team. Which batter, asks Davids, homered off his brother?
Liebman listens intently. He folds his hands in front of him and crosses his ankles. Behind his glasses, he has the look of someone who has stared at a very bright light for a bit too long.
Without consulting his teammates, without pausing a beat after Davids asks the question, Liebman answers: Rick Ferrell homered off Wes Ferrell. A ripple of admiration passes through the audience. Liebman`s expression remains placid, as if he is listening to a sermon.
Eventually, Liebman boots an answer. When he does, it draws a low moan from the crowd, like they have just seen Babe Ruth miss a curve ball badly, swinging and turning on his heels and eventually falling in a heap. But Liebman does not miss many. His team finishes strong, winning their semifinal round 60 to 47.
And so a rematch of last year`s finals is set; it will be played in the Rambler Room at Loyola, after Saturday night`s prime rib banquet.
In fact, the match turns out to be almost a replay of the 1985 finals in Oakland. Liebman misses the first question, misspelling commissioner Peter Ueberroth`s last name. Then he misses another. The opposition fields both errors. Liebman looks shaken, fidgeting with his pen between questions. Gradually, Liebman seems to regain his form. He answers a few tricky multiple- part questions. When the other team misses its last question, Liebman pounces on it.
But the late-inning surge is not enough. Liebman`s team loses 39 to 45. Bob Davids hands out wood and bronze-like plaques to Liebman`s team. The winners get slightly larger wood and bronze-like plaques.
Ted DiTullio tries to console his friend. ”One-on-one this guy is still the best in baseball,” he says, slapping Liebman on the shoulder.
Liebman nods his head and slips his pen into the leather pen holster on his belt. ”I`ll be back again next year,” he says. He will keep trying to win one last national so he can bow out of baseball trivia with the flair of a John Miller or a Ted Williams, the only other player known to have finished his major league career with a home run.
