I used to adore Bill Simmons back in the day.  But his schtick got old for me.  He was such a Boston homer that even all the Rocky 4 jokes ceased to be funny.  But with this singular column, I might just have to venture over to Simmons column a little more frequently again.  Simmons has always had a way with words.  That's never been the issue, but it seems like a piece written by one of our writers on Purple Row and re-published at Beyond the Boxscore was, in part, due to Simmons finding the beauty in baseball's advanced statistics (specifically in this instance, Wins Above Replacement or WAR - or WAAAAR as Jimmy James would've put it).