I hate the Yankees. Nonetheless, I find myself eagerly awaiting Steven Goldman’s Pinstriped Bible, a wonderful weekly column that merges beautiful writing, a biting wit, and intelligent (often statistical) analysis to discuss the MFYs. This week, Goldman penned an embarrassingly humorous diatribe about RBI.

As sure as you’re born, next week this page will run an e-mail from a reader saying, “How can you say that the second basemen have not been productive when they have a whopping 48 RBIs? And lay off the cookies, dude. If you had a picture of Snoopy tattooed across your stomach you’d be the Met Life blimp.”

The reply to this will be what it always is, that RBIs are an opportunistic statistic and do not necessarily represent good production. Think of it as a pie-eating contest, you against Blueberry-Lovin’ McGurk. You’d like to beat McGurk, ‘cause, well, mom is watching, as is your sweet Betty Sue, who will let you take her to the Grange hoedown if only you win the contest. The problem is, Betty Sue’s daddy, Mayor Greive, doesn’t like you much and has fixed the contest in McGurk’s favor. For every one pie put on your plate, McGurk is going to get 10; Mayor Greive understands that you can’t eat pies that you don’t see. Not long into the contest, you’re hopelessly behind; though you’ve eaten six out of six pies given to you, McGurk has “driven home” 20 of the 60 pies put before him. Sure, he’s “plated” just 33 percent of his, while you’ve consumed 100 percent of yours, but he’s going to be the one to marry Betty Sue, borrow some seed money from her dad, and start a company not unlike Microsoft, while you get to accompany Enrique Wilson on his trip to Europe.

Remember: RBIs = Pies, and you can’t eat pies you haven’t been served.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and neither could anyone else.