Pioneering James opens up on the numbers game

In appearance, Bill James reminds you of Michel Lonsdale, the French actor best known for his portrayal of Lebel, the detective who catches the assassin in Day of The Jackal.

Lebel is meticulous, patient and industrious, his attention to detail enabling him to achieve his goals in the end, and the parallels with James’s career in sports statistics are obvious.

At the Web Summit Sports Stage over the last couple of days, James, a courtly giant, offered a quick look back at his career, beginning with his now-famous stint as a security guard in a ‘franks and beans’ factory back in the 70s, when he started writing his Baseball Abstract.