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Baseball or calculus? Advanced metrics changing way we absorb, interpret game

"A box score is more than a capsule archive. It is a precisely etched miniature of the sport itself, for baseball, in spite of its grassy spaciousness and apparent unpredictability, is the most intensely and satisfyingly mathematical of all our outdoor sports."

-- Roger Angell, The New YorkerAngell penned those lines for The New Yorker in the 1960s, when the promise of a new spring made him increasingly eager for his morning paper.There, over a half a cup of coffee, he could review the stat lines of Ferguson Jenkins, Al Kaline, Juan Marichal, Tony Oliva and "other ballplayers -- favorites and knaves -- whose fortunes I follow from April to October.