Statistics are useful. You should buttress your sports arguments with the most indicative ones available. As statistics become increasingly intricate, however, they are overtaking the sports themselves in public consciousness. Those that fetishize stats cast down proclamations from concocted ivory towers impervious to human ingenuity and interaction. They are making sports unenjoyable for others.

I debated with one commenter on this site about “the greatness” of Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew. We disagreed. The disagreement was over what was great, Drew or his numbers.

Had we gone to specifics, he would have mentioned Drew’s better than .900 OPS and 130 OPS+ numbers the past two years, before continuing with VORP and a myriad of acronyms and projections.

I would have countered with the numerous times, as a Red Sox fan, I’ve seen him watch strike three to end an inning with runners on base, with the same impassive expression. No pitcher quivers on the mound, facing J.D. Drew.  I would be scoffed at like some Chassian Neanderthal.

Pedro Martinez had one of his greatest seasons in 1999 (243 OPS+, 0.923 WHIP, 13.2 SO/9). Those numbers are great. So was watching him. The anticipation. The look of defeat in batters’ eyes. The gratification from him absolutely eviscerating another team. It was the closest thing my shy 15-year-old self experienced to sex with another person. There is more than one way to perceive greatness.

I saw a production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It last night. You can enjoy the play from a technical angle, marveling at the word usage and the wit. You can view the play intellectually, liking the meditation on the human experience. You can also revel in the emotive quality of the play, the most profound love, sadness and laughter in the same scene. All are equally valid ways to appreciate it.

Statistics are great. Love them. Bet based on them. Write treatises about them. It’s productive discourse. But, remember it’s only one view. If everything could be determined by statistics, there would be no reason to watch sports.

You can point out that JaMarcus Russell and Mark Sanchez have similar stats. But, it’s equally valid to say that humans are not automatons, he’s winning the effing games, so there must be something Sanchez does differently your numbers are missing.

Ridiculing someone for thinking differently than you edifies no one. It just makes you insufferable.