It’s been more than a decade since Red Sox principal owner John Henry wrote a passage on Bill James in Time Magazine’s annual Time 100, a list of people the magazine considers the most influential in the world.
“He taught us, among other things, that individual ballparks have a profound effect on a ballplayer’s production,” Henry wrote, “that the largest variable determining how many runs a team will score is how many times the leadoff hitter gets on base, that much of what we perceive as pitching is actually defense.”
Years later, James is still working for the Red Sox, listed on the masthead as a senior advisor in baseball operations.