Here's a little slice of delusion from Ralph Wiley's chat and love-in session earlier today:

jeff, boston ma: Ralph, I thought it was shameful the way you implied Bill James and other sabermetricians de-vaule the SB because they have racist leanings. James thinks Rickey is one of the greatest players of all time.

Ralph Wiley: OK, before we get to Kobe, this one deserves mention, more than one person has mentioned it; I spoke with another big fan of Bill James, Page 2 editor David Schoenfield, last week via e-mail; he also told me, informed me, really, that James was supposedly a big fan of Rick's, and think Rick is one of the top 15 players all time; the tone within that section of the piece did imply that, I think now, but I am not as fine as I like to be sometimes. Writing is like pitching. (or hitting). You are not going to always put the ball exactly where you want, but I'll say this. It was still the right velocity. Actually it was a systemic thing James just happened to be part of; SI asked him to right a piece about the effect, meaning of the stolen base in 1982, as RIck was stealing 130 bags. James does not care for the stolen base. Or, should I say, the unsuccessful stolen base. So, let's just call it a rather unhappy coincidence, Unhappy because I came with Rick, see? I was a rookie on the beat when he was a rookie in the Show, and I've seen him do some things. I meant no harm to Bill James.

OK, first it's not "Rick"; it's "Rickey". Rickey refers to Rickey so many times in the third person, how can your forget Rickey's name? Second, SI did not ask him to "right" a piece. They asked him to write it. What was the piece off course and needed a sure pilot like James to right it? Or was the piece wronged by some roue and it needed the masked avenger, James, to right the wrongs done to it? Wiley is a grate righter tho, Eye reed hymn awl the thyme.

Contrast this response to Wiley's original statement:

It is usually the American-born blacks' records and place that are resented instead of celebrated. For example, it's the stolen base that is denigrated as a weapon by baseball sabermaticians [sic] like Bill James, at precisely the time when a Rickey Henderson steals 130 bases in a season. There are sour grapes when a baseball man uses stats to tell you a stolen base isn't important. Any time a baseball manager will give up an out for a base, as with a sac bunt or groundball to the right side, any time a base is so precious, then it goes without saying that the stolen base must be important. Not the CS, the caught stealing, or stats of success rates, but the stolen base itself.

"James was supposedly a big fan of Rick's... the tone within that section of the piece did imply that, I think now'? I think Wiley's referring to his own piece (piece of what?) here, not James' article on Henderson.

The reason I say that is is that he goes on to, "[B]ut I am not as fine as I like to be sometimes. Writing is like pitching. (or hitting). You are not going to always put the ball exactly where you want, but I'll say this. It was still the right velocity."

So to paraphrase, "I screwed up but it was an honest mistake." James is characterized as a man with an agenda using stats to "denigrate as a weapon" an individual because he holds an "American-born blacks' record". But one email from an editor gets Wiley to rehabilitate James to the point that the problem now is a "systemic thing James just happened to be part of" and that he "meant no harm to Bill James." I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.

By the way, why didn't the editor point this out before ESPN published Wiley's tripe to begin with? I'm sorry, I used to work for a publisher whose editors actually edited, but I probably just don't get ESPN's paradigm. Oh, and sorry for trying to inject logic into the situation.

Maybe the systemic thing is the problem of allowing hacks with an axe to grind a forum in which to bloviate on topics, on which they have not even a pedestrian understanding. Heck, you can't even get away with that in the blogging world.

After reading Wiley's chat response I have even less respect for him. He was a just hack righter before, but at least he had convictions. James was a racist hiding under the cloak of "sabermetrics". Now, he wants to just pretend he didn't say it? It's like the old Gilda Radner character Emily Latella spouting off on topics that she mishears: "What's all this I hear about banning violins in school?"

How can anything that he says from this point forward have any credibility? Oh, you say it never did?

"Never mind."

[By the way the headline was a reference to "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius". I bit of a stretch, eh?]