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MATHLETICS
MATHLETICS
H O W G A M B L E R S , M A N­A G­E R S ,
AND FANS USE
M A T H E ­M A T I C S I N S P O R T S

2ND EDITION

WAYNE L. WINSTON, SCOTT NESTLER,

AND KONSTANTINOS PELECHRINIS
P R I N C E ­T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S • P R I N C E ­T O N & O X F O R D
 Copyright © 2022 by Prince­ton University Press

Prince­ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellec-
tual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro­gress and integrity
of knowledge. Thank you for supporting ­free speech and the global exchange of ideas by
purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any
part of it in any form, please obtain permission.

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work

should be sent to permissions@press​.­princeton​.­edu

Published by Prince­ton University Press

41 William Street, Prince­ton, New Jersey 08540
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR

press​.­princeton​.­edu

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 9780691177625
ISBN (e-­book) 9780691189291

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949227

British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available

Editorial: Susannah Shoemaker, Diana Gillooly, and Kristen Hop

Production Editorial: Nathan Carr
Text Design and Cover: Lauren Smith
Production: Jacquie Poirier
Copyeditor: Bhisham Bherwani

This book has been composed in Adobe Text Pro, Bee Four, and Courier New
Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca

10 ​9 ​8 ​7 ​6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1
 FROM KOSTAS:
To my wife, who puts up with my long hours of work,
and to my dad, who introduced me to the world of sports
but left this world sooner than he should have.

FROM WAYNE:
To Vivian, Greg, and Jen. Thanks for putting up with me!

FROM SCOTT:
To “Vegas Howie,” who shared his love of sports
and numbers with so many ­people.
“In God we trust; all ­others must bring data.”
—W. Edwards Deming
 CONTENTS
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Abbreviations xvii

PART I BASEBALL

1. Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem 3

2. Who Had a Better Year: Mike Trout or Kris Bryant? 12
3. Evaluating Hitters by Linear Weights 18
4. Evaluating Hitters by Monte Carlo Simulation 31
5. Evaluating Baseball Pitchers, Forecasting F
­ uture
Pitcher Per­for­mance, and an Introduction to Statcast 44
6. Baseball Decision Making 60
7. Evaluating Fielders 73
8. Win Probability Added (WPA) 84
9. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Player Salaries 92
10. Park ­Factors 101
11. Streakiness in Sports 105
12. The Platoon Effect 124
13. Was Tony Perez a ­Great Clutch Hitter? 127
viiiContents

14. Pitch Count, Pitcher Effectiveness, and PITCHf/x Data 133

15. Would Ted Williams Hit .406 ­today? 139
16. Was Joe DiMaggio’s 56-­Game Hitting Streak
the Greatest Sports Rec­ord of All Time? 142
17. Projecting Major League Per­for­mance 151

PART II FOOTBALL

18. What Makes NFL Teams Win? 159

19. Who’s Better: Brady or Rod­gers? 164
20. Football States and Values 170
21. Football Decision Making 101 178
22. If Passing Is Better than ­Running, Why D
­ on’t Teams
Always Pass? 186
23. Should We Go for a One-­Point or a
Two-­Point Conversion? 195
24. To Give Up the Ball Is Better than to Receive:
The Case of College Football Overtime 207
25. Has the NFL Fi­nally Gotten the OT Rules Right? 211
26. How Valuable Are NFL Draft Picks? 222
27. Player Tracking Data in the NFL 229

PART III BASKETBALL

28. Basketball Statistics 101: The Four ­Factor Model 249

29. Linear Weights for Evaluating NBA Players 259
30. Adjusted +/− Player Ratings 265
31. ESPN RPM and FiveThirtyEight RAPTOR Ratings 282
Contentsix

32. NBA Lineup Analy­sis 289

33. Analyzing Team and Individual Matchups 296
34. NBA Salaries and the Value of a Draft Pick 303
35. Are NBA Officials Prejudiced? 307
36. Pick-­n-­Rolling to Win, the Death of Post Ups and Isos 313
37. SportVU, Second Spectrum, and the Spatial
Basketball Data Revolution 321
38. In-­Game Basketball Decision Making 341

PART IV OTHER SPORTS

39. Soccer Analytics 355

40. Hockey Analytics 373
41. Volleyball Analytics 385
42. Golf Analytics 391
43. Analytics and Cyber Athletes: The Era of e-­Sports 398

PART V SPORTS GAMBLING

44. Sports Gambling 101 409

45. Freakonomics Meets the Bookmaker 420
46. Rating Sports Teams 423
47. From Point Ratings to Probabilities 447
48. The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) 464
49. Optimal Money Management:
The Kelley Growth Criterion 468
50. Calcuttas 474
xContents

PART VI METHODS AND MISCELLANEOUS

51. How to Work with Data Sources: Collecting

and Visualizing Data 479
52. Assessing Players with ­Limited Data:
The Bayesian Approach 490
53. Finding Latent Patterns through Matrix Factorization 499
54. Network Analy­sis in Sports 508
55. Elo Ratings 524
56. Comparing Players from Dif­fer­ent Eras 531
57. Does Fatigue Make Cowards of Us All? The Case
of NBA Back-­to-­Back Games and NFL Bye Weeks 538
58. The College Football Playoff 543
59. Quantifying Sports Collapses 551
60. Daily Fantasy Sports 559

Bibliography 569
Index 579
 PREFACE
When WW (Wayne Winston) began writing the first edition of
Mathletics in 2005, many North American sports teams did not
have analytics departments and the first annual famed M.I.T. Sloan
School Sports Analytics Conference had not taken place. Very few
schools taught sports analytics courses. Now ­every major (baseball,
football, basketball, and hockey) North American sports team has
an analytics department, tickets to the Sloan School Conference
quickly sell out, and many schools teach sports analytics courses.
Google searches for the term “sports analytics” have qua­dru­pled
since 2007, and surely the number of scholarly publications involv-
ing sports analytics has grown exponentially. New data based on
cameras in venues and fitness devices worn by athletes have opened
up new areas of analy­sis. The joke is that some teams (like the Hous-
ton Rockets) have more analytics personnel than players!
The first edition of Mathletics was well received, but with the
rapid development of sports analytics, the time seems ripe for a
second edition. I am fortunate to have two ­great co-­authors: Scott
Nestler (SN) of Notre Dame and Kostas Pelechrinis (KP) of the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh.
If you want a self-­contained introduction to the use of math
in sports, we feel this is the book for you. No prior knowledge is
assumed, and even a bright high school student should be able to
absorb most of the material. Even if your ­career does not involve
sports, we are sure that anyone using analytics in his or her c­ areer
­will benefit from learning how analytics lead to better outcomes for
xiiPreface

sports teams. We also think that you w

­ ill watch your favorite sport-
ing events with a new perspective.

WHAT’S NEW

We have added 17 new chapters and made substantial changes to all the
chapters in the first edition. A summary of the major changes follows:

• We have updated player references. (Mike Trout, Clayton

­Kershaw, and James Harden play key roles!)
• We have added extensive discussion of the camera data used in
baseball, basketball, and football.
• We walk the reader through how to compute WAR (Wins
Above Replacement) in baseball and basketball.
• Newer basketball player evaluation metrics such as Real Plus
Minus and RAPTOR are included.
• Sanjurjo and Miller’s non-­intuitive new work on the hot hand
in sports is discussed.
• New chapters have been added on soccer, hockey, volleyball,
golf, and even e-­sports.
• The gambling chapters have been updated with more recent
data, and a chapter on Calcuttas is included.
• The criteria used for se­lection to the NCAA basketball tourna-
ment and the College Football Playoff are discussed.
• Daily fantasy sports are discussed.
• Newer chapters cover the newest methods utilized in sports an-
alytics, including collecting and visualization of data, Bayesian
analy­sis, matrix factorization, and network analy­sis in sports.

BOOK RESOURCES

We would also like to make an impor­tant note about the software

tools used throughout the book. While we have presented the analy­
sis through calculations in Excel, this was a choice we made ­after
long deliberation. Given that the focus of the book is on the analyti-
Prefacexiii

cal approaches used to gain insights and make decisions, the specific
tool used to implement ­these is of secondary focus. Furthermore,
using Excel allows for demo­cratizing accessibility of the material to
­people not proficient in programming, which can include, for ex-
ample, high school students and non-­STEM gradu­ates. Neverthe-
less, understanding the importance of programming skills in ­today’s
world, we have also provided a companion website and code re-
pository, where we have provided the implementation in Python
of the most challenging analytical tasks covered in the book. While
­these are not meant to teach from scratch how one can program in
Python, we hope that they ­will be an additional valuable resource
for p­ eople with minimal programming background. Whenever pos­
si­ble, the code repository content w ­ ill also be dynamic, and periodi-
cally updated with more recent data.
The website for this book is http://­www​.­mathleticsbook ​.­com​.­
You ­will be able to find a variety of resources ­there, including errata,
datasets, Excel files, Python scripts, and R scripts (forthcoming).
Code ­will also be available in a GitHub repository at https://­github​
.­com​/­mathletics​-­book​/­.

CONTACT US
We hope you enjoy this book as much we enjoyed writing it. Feel
­free to contact us via email.

• Wayne Winston (winston@indiana​.­edu​­)

• Kostas Pelechrinis (kpele@pitt​.­edu​­)
• Scott Nestler (scott@nestler.com)
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks go to our former editor Vickie Kearn, whose unwavering
support of both editions has been truly gratifying. We are eternally
grateful to her successor, Susannah Shoemaker, whose patience and
support were invaluable throughout the writing pro­cess.
Wayne would like to thank his seventh grade social studies
teacher from Livingston, New Jersey, the late Thomas Spitz, who
taught him the art of outlining. Most of all, he would like to recog-
nize his best friend and world-­class sports handicapper Jeff Sagarin.
His discussions with Jeff about sports and math have always been
stimulating. If he had not known Jeff, this book would not exist.
Kostas would like to thank Mike Lopez, for providing permis-
sion to use and pre­sent results from the first Big Data Bowl’s NFL
tracking data. He would also like to thank Kirk Goldsberry for the
in­ter­est­ing discussions on basketball that many times led to in­ter­
est­ing research prob­lems, some of which are covered in the book.
Kostas would also like to thank his Ph.D. mentor Srikanth Krishna­
murthy for instilling in him genuine scientific curiosity, as well as
Michalis Faloutsos for useful advice and support throughout the
years. Fi­nally, Kostas wants to thank his department chairs through
the years, David Tipper, Martin Weiss, and Prashant Krishnamur-
thy, for not putting any obstacles before him to venture to research
areas beyond the norm.
Scott would like to thank a number of students, both undergrad-
uate and gradu­ate, who contributed to revisions to existing chapters,
including: Mark Giannini, Chase Thompson, Dan Verzuh, Charlie
xviAcknowledgments

Puntillo, Katie McCullough, and Sebastian Amato. Their assistance

in collecting data, revising existing models, and updating for younger
readers was invaluable. Comments and suggestions from numerous
students in his Sports Analytics courses (for extra credit) helped
identify and correct errors in early drafts of chapters. He would also
like to thank his co-­authors for their patience with him during the
writing pro­cess when he fell ­behind and ­wasn’t the best collabora-
tor. Fi­nally, Scott thanks his ­family (Kristin, Anna, and Sophia) for
the time and attention that this proj­ect took away from them in the
form of un­balanced carpool responsibilities, missed dance competi-
tions, ­etc.
 ABBREVIATIONS
2B: Double
3B: ­Triple
3PT: Three point
AB: At Bat
ACC: Atlantic Coast Conference
API: Application Programming Interface
AST: Assists
AV: Approximate Value
BARKS: Bar-­Eli, Azar, Ritov, Keidar-­Levin, and Schein
BB: Walk
BCS: Bowl Championship Series
BLK: Blocks
BSB: Berri, Schmidt, and Brook
BT: Bradley–Terry
C: Center
CFP: College Football Playoff
CLG: Chiappori, Levitt, and Groseclose
CM: Car­ter and Machol
CPAE: Completion Percentage Above Expectation
CS: Caught Stealing
CSW: Cabot, Sagarin, and Winston
D: Down
D: Double
DBVD: Decroos, Bransen, Van Haaren, and Davis
DFS: Daily Fantasy Sports
xviiiAbbreviations

DICE: Defense-­Independent Component ERA

DPY/A:Defensive Passing Yards (allowed) per Attempt
DR: Defensive Rebounds
DRP: Defensive Rebounding Percentage
DRPM: Defensive Real Plus Minus
DRY/A:Defensive Rushing Yards (allowed) per Attempt
DTO: Defensive Turnovers
DTPP: Defense Turnover Percentage
E: Error
EFF: Efficiency
EFG: Effective Field Goal Percentage
ENG: Empty Net Goal
EPV: Expected Points Value
ERA: Earned Run Average
ESPN: Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
F: Forward
FG: Field Goal
FGA: Field Goal Attempted
FIBA: Fédération Internationale de Basketball
(International Basketball Federation)
FMBG: Franks, Miller, Bornn, and Goldsberry
FOW%: Face-­off Win Percentage
FP: Fantasy Points
FPI: Football Power Index
FT: ­Free Throw
FTA: ­Free Throw Attempts
FTR: ­Free Throw Rate
G: Guard
GIDP: Grounding Into Double Play
GLM: Generalized Linear Model
GP: Games Played
H: Hit
HBP: Hit by Pitch
HR: Home Run
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language
Abbreviationsxix

Innouts: Number of innings a fielder f­ aces

IP: Internet Protocol
JSON: Javascript Object Notation
K: Strikeout
LC3: Left Corner Three
LoL: League of Legends
LW: Linear Weights
MAD: Mean Absolute Deviation
MC: Monte Carlo
MCL: Medial Collateral Ligament
MLB: Major League Baseball
MLR: Multiple Linear Regression
MLS: Major League Soccer
MOBA: Multiplayer Online ­Battle Arena
MPG: Minutes per Game
NBA: National Basketball Association
NCAA: National Collegiate Athletic Association
NET: NCAA Evaluation Tool
NFL: National Football League
NHL: National Hockey League
NMF: Nonnegative Matrix Factorization
OAA: Outs Above Average
OBP: On-­Base Percentage
OBSO: Off-­Ball Scoring Opportunities
OEFG: Opponent Effective Field Goal
OFTR: Opponent ­Free Throw Rate
OL: Offensive Line
OLR: Ordinal Logistic Regression
OppFGA: Opponent Field Goal Attempts
OppFTA: Opponent ­Free Throw Attempts
OppOREB: Opponent Offensive Rebounds
OppTO: Opponent Turnovers
OPS: On-­base Plus Slugging
OR: Offensive Rebounds
OREB: Offensive Rebound
xxAbbreviations

ORP: Offensive Rebounding Percentage

ORPM: Offensive Real Plus Minus
OT: Overtime
PAP: Pitcher Abuse Points
PAT: Points A
­ fter Touchdown
PCA: Principal Component Analy­sis
PENDIF: Penalty Yards Difference
PER: Player Efficiency Rating
PF: Personal Fouls
PF: Power Forward
PFF: Pro Football Focus
PFR: Pro Football Reference
PG: Point Guard
PNR: Pick-­and-­Roll
PO: Putout
POT: Probability a team wins in OT
PPP: Points per Possession
PPW: Pope, Price, and Wolfers
PTHREE: Probability a three-­point shot is made
PTS: Points
PTS%: Points Percentage
PTWO: Probability a two-­point shot is made
PY/A: Passing Yards per Attempt
QB: Quarterback
QBR: Quarterback Rating
qSQ: Quantified Shot Quality
R: Correlation
RAPTOR: FiveThirtyEight​.­com’s NBA player rating system
RC: Runs Created
RC3: Right Corner Three
RD: Rating Deviation
RET: Return
RF: Range ­Factor
RFID: Radio Frequency Identification
ROY: Rookie of the year
Abbreviationsxxi

RPI: Rating Percentage Index

RPM: Real Plus-Minus
RSQ: R-­Squared Value
RY/A: Rushing Yards per Attempt
SAT: Shot Attempts
SB: Stolen Base
SF: Sacrifice Fly
SG: Shooting Guard
SH: Sacrifice Hit
SLG: Slugging Percentage
SPG: Sicilia, Pelechrinis, and Goldsberry
T: ­Triple
TD: Touchdown
TM: Thaler–­Massey
TO: Turnovers
TPP: Turnover Percentage
TPZSG: Two-­Person Zero-Sum Game
TS%: True Shooting Percentage
U: Utility
UBR: Ultimate Base ­Running
URL: Uniform Resource Locator
WAR: Wins Above Replacement
wGDP: Weighted Grounded into Double Play Runs
WINVAL: Adjusted +/− system for rating NBA players
wOBA: Weighted On-­Base Average
WP: Wolfers and Price
WPA: Win Probability Added
wRAA: Weighted Runs Above Average
wSB: Weighted Stolen Base Runs
XERA: Pitcher’s estimated ERA if he had average luck
xG: Expected Goals
XML: Extensible Markup Language
YL: Yard Line
YTG: Yards to Gain
YVH: Yurko, Ventura, and Horo­witz
 PART I

BASEBALL
 CHAPTER 1

BASEBALL’S PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM

The more runs that a baseball team scores, the more games the team
should win. Conversely, the fewer runs a team gives up, the more
games the team should win. Bill James, prob­ably the most celebrated
advocate of applying mathe­matics to analy­sis of Major League Base-
ball (often called sabermetrics), studied many years of Major League
Baseball standings and found that the percentage of games won by a
baseball team can be well approximated by the formula

runs scored 2 Estimate of percentage (1)

= of games won.
runs scored + runs allowed
2 2

This formula has several desirable properties:

• Predicted win percentage is always between 0 and 1.

• An increase in runs scored increases predicted win
percentage.
• A decrease in runs allowed increases predicted win
percentage.

Consider a right triangle with a hypotenuse (the longest side)

of length c and two other sides of length a and b. Recall from high
school geometry that the Pythagorean Theorem states that a triangle
is a right triangle if and only if a2 + b2 = c2 must hold. For example, a
4Chapter 1

triangle with sides of lengths 3, 4, and 5 is a right triangle ­because

32 + 42 = 52. The fact that equation (1) adds up the squares of two
numbers led Bill James to call the relationship described in (1) Base-
ball’s Pythagorean Theorem.
runs scored
Let’s define R = as a team’s scoring ratio. If we
runs allowed
­divide the numerator and denominator of (1) by (runs allowed)2,
then the value of the fraction remains unchanged and we may re-
write (1) as equation (1′).

R2
= Estimate of percentage of games won (1′)
R2 + 1

Figure 1-1 (see file Mathleticschapter1files.xlsx for all of this chap-

ter’s analy­sis) shows how well (1′) predicts teams’ winning percent-
ages for Major League Baseball teams during the 2005–2016 sea-
sons. For example, the 2016 Los Angeles Dodgers scored 725 runs
725
and gave up 638 runs. Their scoring ratio was R = = 1.136. Their
638
predicted win percentage from Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem
1.1362
was = .5636. The 2016 Dodgers actually won a fraction
1.1362 + 1
91
= .5618 of their games. Thus (1′) was off by 0.18% in predicting
162
the percentage of games won by the Dodgers in 2016.
For each team define Error in Win Percentage Prediction to equal
­Actual Winning Percentage minus Predicted Winning Percentage.
For example, for the 2016 Atlanta Braves, Error = .42 − .41 = .01 (or
1.0%), and for the 2016 Colorado Rockies, Error = .46 − .49 = −.03
(or 3%). A positive error means that the team won more games than
predicted while a negative error means the team won fewer games
than predicted. Column J computes for each team the absolute value
of the prediction error. Recall that absolute value of a number is
simply the distance of the number from 0. That is, | 5 | = | −5 | = 5.
In cell J1 we average the absolute prediction errors for each team to
obtain a mea­sure of how well our predicted win percentages fit the
­actual team winning percentages. The average of absolute forecasting
Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem5

A B C D E F G H I J
1 exp 2.000 MAD: 0.021
2 Year Team Wins Losses Runs Opp Runs Ratio Pred W–L% Act W–L% Error
3 2016 ARI 69 93 752 890 0.845 0.42 0.43 0.009
4 2016 ATL 68 93 649 779 0.833 0.41 0.42 0.010
5 2016 BAL 89 73 744 715 1.041 0.52 0.55 0.030
6 2016 BOS 93 69 878 694 1.265 0.62 0.57 0.041
7 2016 CHC 103 58 808 556 1.453 0.68 0.64 0.043
8 2016 CHW 78 84 686 715 0.959 0.48 0.48 0.002
9 2016 CIN 68 94 716 854 0.838 0.41 0.42 0.007
10 2016 CLE 94 67 777 676 1.149 0.57 0.58 0.011
11 2016 COL 75 87 845 860 0.983 0.49 0.46 0.028
12 2016 DET 86 75 750 721 1.040 0.52 0.53 0.011
13 2016 HOU 84 78 724 701 1.033 0.52 0.52 0.002
14 2016 KCR 81 81 675 712 0.948 0.47 0.50 0.027
15 2016 LAA 74 88 717 727 0.986 0.49 0.46 0.036
16 2016 LAD 91 71 725 638 1.136 0.56 0.56 0.002
17 2016 MIA 79 82 655 682 0.960 0.48 0.49 0.008
18 2016 MIL 73 89 671 733 0.915 0.46 0.45 0.005
19 2016 MIN 59 103 722 889 0.812 0.40 0.36 0.033
20 2016 NYM 87 75 671 617 1.088 0.54 0.54 0.005
21 2016 NYY 84 78 680 702 0.969 0.48 0.52 0.034

FIGURE 1.1 Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem 2005–2016.

errors is called the MAD (mean absolute deviation).1 We find that for
our dataset the predicted winning percentages of the Pythagorean
Theorem ­were off by an average of 2.17% per team.
Instead of blindly assuming win percentage can be approximated
by using the square of the scoring ratio, perhaps we should try a
formula to predict winning percentage, such as

R exp
. (2)
R exp + 1
If we vary exp in (2) we can make (2) better fit the ­actual dependence
of winning percentage on the scoring ratio for dif­fer­ent sports.

1. ​Why ­didn’t we just average the ­actual errors? ­Because averaging positive and
negative errors would result in positive and negative errors canceling out. For ex-
ample, if one team wins 5% more games than (1′) predicts and another team wins
5% less games than (1′) predicts, the average of the errors is 0 but the average of the
absolute errors is 5%. Of course, in this s­ imple situation estimating the average error
as 5% is correct while estimating the average error as 0% is nonsensical.
6Chapter 1

N O
5 MAD
6 0.021
7 1.1 0.02812245
8 1.2 0.02617963
9 1.3 0.02441563
10 1.4 0.02289267
11 1.5 0.02160248
12 1.6 0.02069009
13 1.7 0.02014272
14 1.8 0.0199295
15 1.9 0.0201094
16 2 0.020513
17 2.1 0.02114432
18 2.2 0.02208793
19 2.3 0.02328749
20 2.4 0.02473436
21 2.5 0.02640258
22 2.6 0.02823811
23 2.7 0.03019355
24 2.8 0.03228514
25 2.9 0.03447043
26 3 0.03670606

FIGURE 1.2 Dependence of Pythagorean

Theorem Accuracy on Exponent.

For baseball, we ­will allow exp in (2) (exp is short for exponent)
to vary between 1 and 3. Of course exp = 2 reduces to the Pythago-
rean Theorem.
Figure 1-2 shows how the MAD changes as we vary exp between
1 and 3. This was done using the Data T ­ able feature in Excel.2 We see
that indeed exp = 1.8 yields the smallest MAD (1.99%). An exp value
of 2 is almost as good (MAD of 2.05%), so for simplicity we ­will stick
with Bill James’s view that exp = 2. Therefore exp = 2 (or 1.8) yields the
best forecasts if we use an equation of form (2). Of course, ­there might
be another equation that predicts winning percentage better than the
­Pythagorean Theorem from runs scored and allowed. The Pythago-

2. ​See Chapter 1 Appendix for an explanation of how we used Data ­Tables to de-
termine how MAD changes as we vary exp between 1 and 3. Additional information
available at https://­support​.­office​.­com​/­en​-­us​/­article​/­calculate​-­multiple​-­results​-­by​
-­using​-­a​-d
­ ata​-­table​-­e95e2487​-­6ca6​-­4413​-­ad12​-­77542a5ea50b.
Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem7

rean Theorem is ­simple and intuitive, however, and does very well.
­After all, we are off in predicting team wins by an average of 162 * .0205,
which is approximately three wins per team. Therefore, I see no reason
to look for a more complicated (albeit slightly more accurate) model.

HOW WELL DOES THE PYTHAGOREAN

THEOREM FORECAST?

To test the utility of the Pythagorean Theorem (or any prediction

model) we should check how well it forecasts the ­future. We chose to
compare the Pythagorean Theorem’s forecast for each Major League
Baseball playoff series (2005–2016) against a prediction based just
on games won. For each playoff series the Pythagorean method
would predict the winner to be the team with the higher scoring
ratio while the “games won” approach simply predicts the winner of
a playoff series to be the team that won more games. We found that
the Pythagorean approach correctly predicted 46 of 84 playoff series
(54.8%) while the “games won” approach correctly predicted the
winner of only 55% (44 out of 80) playoff series.3 The reader is prob­
ably disappointed that even the Pythagorean method only correctly
forecasts the outcome of ­under 54% of baseball playoff series. We
believe that the regular season is a relatively poor predictor of the
playoffs in baseball b
­ ecause a team’s regular season rec­ord depends a
lot on the per­for­mance of five starting pitchers. During the playoffs,
teams only use three or four starting pitchers, so a lot of the regular
season data (games involving the fourth and fifth starting pitchers)
are not relevant for predicting the outcome of the playoffs.
For anecdotal evidence of how the Pythagorean Theorem fore-
casts the ­future per­for­mance of a team better than a team’s win-­loss
rec­ord, consider the case of the 2005 Washington Nationals. On
July 4, 2005, the Nationals w­ ere in first place with a rec­ord of 50–32.
If we had extrapolated this win percentage, we would have predicted

3. ​In four playoff series the opposing teams had identical win-­loss rec­ords, so
the “games won” approach could not make a prediction.
8Chapter 1

a final rec­ord of 99–63. On July 4, 2005, the Nationals’ scoring ratio

was .991. On July 4, 2005, equation (1) would predict the Nationals
to win around half (40) of the remaining 80 games and finish with a
90–72 rec­ord. In real­ity, the Nationals only won 31 of their remain-
ing games and finished at 81–81!

IMPORTANCE OF PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM

The Baseball Pythagorean Theorem is also impor­tant ­because it al-

lows us to determine how many extra wins (or losses) w ­ ill result
from a trade. As an example, suppose a team has scored 850 runs
during a season and also given up 800 runs. Suppose we trade
an SS ( Joe) who “created”4 150 runs for a shortstop (Greg) who
created 170 runs in the same number of plate appearances. This
trade ­will cause the team (all other ­things being equal) to score
850
170 − 150 = 20 more runs. Before the trade, R = = 1.0625, and we
800
162 * 1.06252
would ­predict the team to have won = 85.9 games.
1 + 1.06252
870
­After the trade, R = = 1.0875, and we would predict the team to
800
162 * 1.08752
have won = 87.8 games. Therefore, we estimate the trade
1 + 1.08752
makes our team 87.8 − 85.9 = 1.9 games better. In Chapter 9, we w ­ ill
see how the Pythagorean Theorem can be used to help determine
fair salaries for Major League Baseball players.

FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL

“PYTHAGOREAN THEOREMS”

Does the Pythagorean Theorem hold for football and basketball?

Daryl Morey, currently the General Man­ag­er for the Houston
Rockets NBA team, has shown that for the NFL, equation (2) with

4. ​In Chapters 2–4 we w

­ ill explain in detail how to determine how many runs
a hitter creates.
 Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem9

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N
1 Exp 2.370 MAD 0.051
2 Year Team Wins Losses Ties PF PA Ratio Pred W–L% Act W-L% Error
3 2015 Arizona Cardinals 13 3 0 489 313 1.56 0.742 0.813 0.071
4 2015 Atlanta Falcons 8 8 0 339 345 0.98 0.490 0.5 0.010 MAD
5 2015 Baltimore Ravens 5 11 0 328 401 0.82 0.383 0.313 0.070 Exp 0.051130558
6 2015 Buffalo Bills 8 8 0 379 359 1.06 0.532 0.5 0.032 1.5 0.087458019
7 2015 Carolina Panthers 15 1 0 500 308 1.62 0.759 0.938 0.179 1.6 0.083786393
8 2015 Chicago Bears 6 10 0 335 397 0.84 0.401 0.375 0.026 1.7 0.080410576
9 2015 Cincinnati Bengals 12 4 0 419 279 1.50 0.724 0.75 0.026 1.8 0.077291728
10 2015 Cleveland Browns 3 13 0 278 432 0.64 0.260 0.188 0.072 1.9 0.074380834
11 2015 Dallas Cowboys 4 12 0 275 374 0.74 0.325 0.25 0.075 2 0.071698879
12 2015 Denver Broncos 12 4 0 355 296 1.20 0.606 0.75 0.144 2.1 0.069282984
13 2015 Detroit Lions 7 9 0 358 400 0.90 0.435 0.438 0.003 2.2 0.067048672
14 2015 Green Bay Packers 10 6 0 368 323 1.14 0.577 0.625 0.048 2.3 0.065010818
15 2015 Houston Texans 9 7 0 339 313 1.08 0.547 0.563 0.016 2.4 0.063455288
16 2015 Indianapolis Colts 8 8 0 333 408 0.82 0.382 0.5 0.118 2.5 0.062158811
17 2015 Jacksonville Jaguars 5 11 0 376 448 0.84 0.398 0.313 0.085 2.6 0.061279631
18 2015 Kansas City Chiefs 11 5 0 405 287 1.41 0.693 0.688 0.005 2.7 0.060819271
19 2015 Miami Dolphins 6 10 0 310 389 0.80 0.369 0.375 0.006 2.8 0.060758708
20 2015 Minnesota Vikings 11 5 0 365 302 1.21 0.610 0.688 0.078 2.9 0.060941558
21 2015 New England Patriots 12 4 0 465 315 1.48 0.716 0.75 0.034 3 0.061357921
22 2015 New Orleans Saints 7 9 0 408 476 0.86 0.410 0.438 0.028 3.1 0.061891886
23 2015 New York Giants 6 10 0 420 442 0.95 0.470 0.375 0.095 3.2 0.062648637
24 2015 New York Jets 10 6 0 387 314 1.23 0.621 0.625 0.004 3.3 0.063594958
25 2015 Oakland Raiders 7 9 0 359 399 0.90 0.438 0.438 0.000 3.4 0.06474528
26 2015 Philadelphia Eagles 7 9 0 377 430 0.88 0.423 0.438 0.015 3.5 0.065955742
27 2015 Pittsburgh Steelers 10 6 0 423 319 1.33 0.661 0.625 0.036

FIGURE 1.3 Predicted NFL Winning Percentages: Exp = 2.37.

exp = 2.37 gives the most accurate predictions for winning percent-
age, while for the NBA, equation (2) with exp = 13.91 gives the most
accurate predictions for winning percentage. Figure 1-3 gives the
predicted and a­ ctual winning percentages for the 2015 NFL, while
Figure 1-4 gives the predicted and ­actual winning percentages for
the 2015–2016 NBA. See the file Sportshw1.xls
For the 2008–2015 NFL seasons we found MAD was minimized
by exp = 2.8. Exp = 2.8 yielded a MAD of 6.08%, while Morey’s
exp = 2.37 yielded a MAD of 6.39%. For the NBA seasons 2008–2016
we found exp = 14.4 best fit ­actual winning percentages. The MAD
for t­ hese seasons was 2.84% for exp = 14.4 and 2.87% for exp = 13.91.
Since Morey’s values of exp are very close in accuracy to the values
we found from recent seasons we ­will stick with Morey’s values of
exp. See file Sportshw1.xls.
Assuming the errors in our forecasts follow a normal random
variable (which turns out to be a reasonable assumption) we would
 10Chapter 1

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
1 Exp 13.910 MAD 0.0287
2 Year Team Wins Losses Points Opp Points Ratio Pred W-L% Act W-L% Error
3 2015-16 Atlanta Hawks 48 34 8433 8137 1.04 0.622 0.585 0.037
4 2015-16 Boston Celtics 48 34 8669 8406 1.03 0.606 0.585 0.021
5 2015-16 Brooklyn Nets 21 61 8089 8692 0.93 0.269 0.256 0.013 Exp 0.0287
6 2015-16 Charlotte Hornets 48 34 8479 8256 1.03 0.592 0.585 0.007 12 0.0340286
7 2015-16 Chicago Bulls 42 40 8335 8456 0.99 0.450 0.512 0.062 12.2 0.0332135
8 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers 57 25 8555 8063 1.06 0.695 0.695 6E-05 12.4 0.0324282
9 2015-16 Dallas Mavericks 42 40 8388 8413 1 0.490 0.512 0.022 12.6 0.0317199
10 2015-16 Denver Nuggets 33 49 8355 8609 0.97 0.397 0.402 0.005 12.8 0.0310445
11 2015-16 Detroit Pistons 44 38 8361 8311 1.01 0.521 0.537 0.016 13 0.0304509
12 2015-16 Golden State Warriors 73 9 9421 8539 1.1 0.797 0.89 0.093 13.2 0.0298964
13 2015-16 Houston Rockets 41 41 8737 8721 1 0.506 0.5 0.006 13.4 0.0294269
14 2015-16 Indiana Pacers 45 37 8377 8237 1.02 0.558 0.549 0.009 13.6 0.0290408
15 2015-16 Los Angeles Clippers 53 29 8569 8218 1.04 0.641 0.646 0.005 13.8 0.0287533
16 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers 17 65 7982 8766 0.91 0.214 0.207 0.007 14 0.0285995
17 2015-16 Memphis Grizzlies 42 40 8126 8310 0.98 0.423 0.512 0.089 14.2 0.0284997
18 2015-16 Miami Heat 48 34 8204 8069 1.02 0.557 0.585 0.028 14.4 0.0284481
19 2015-16 Milwaukee Bucks 33 49 8122 8465 0.96 0.360 0.402 0.042 14.6 0.0284727
20 2015-16 Minnesota Timberwolves 29 53 8398 8688 0.97 0.384 0.354 0.03 14.8 0.028568
21 2015-16 New Orleans Pelicans 30 52 8423 8734 0.96 0.377 0.366 0.011 15 0.0287573
22 2015-16 New York Knicks 32 50 8065 8289 0.97 0.406 0.39 0.016 15.2 0.0289692
23 2015-16 Oklahoma City Thunder 55 27 9038 8441 1.07 0.721 0.671 0.05 15.4 0.0292675
24 2015-16 Orlando Magic 35 47 8369 8502 0.98 0.445 0.427 0.018 15.6 0.0296178
25 2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers 10 72 7988 8827 0.9 0.200 0.122 0.078 15.8 0.0300081
26 2015-16 Phoenix Suns 23 59 8271 8817 0.94 0.291 0.28 0.011 16 0.0304529
27 2015-16 Portland Trail Blazers 44 38 8622 8554 1.01 0.528 0.537 0.009

FIGURE 1.4 Predicted NBA Winning Percentages: Exp = 13.91.

expect around 95% of our NBA win forecasts to be accurate within

2.5 * MAD = 7.3%. Over 82 games this is about 6 games. So whenever
the Pythagorean forecast for wins is off by more than six games, the
Pythagorean prediction is an “outlier.” When we spot outliers we try
and explain why they occurred. The 2006–2007 Boston Celtics had a
scoring ratio of .966, and Pythagoras predicts the Celtics should have
won 31 games. They won seven fewer games (24). During that season
many p ­ eople suggested the Celtics “tanked” games to improve their
chance of having the #1 pick (Greg Oden and Kevin Durant went 1–2)
in the draft lottery. The shortfall in the Celtics’ wins does not prove
this conjecture, but the evidence is consistent with the Celtics win-
ning substantially fewer games than chance would indicate.
Baseball’s Pythagorean Theorem11

C H A P T E R 1 A P P E N D I X : D A T A ­T A B L E S

The Excel Data T ­ able feature enables us to see how a formula changes
as the values of one or two cells in a spreadsheet are modified. In this
appendix we show how to use a one-­way data ­table to determine
how the accuracy of (2) for predicting team winning percentage de-
pends on the value of exp. To illustrate let’s show how to use a one-­
way data t­ able to determine how varying exp from 1 to 3 changes
our average error in predicting an MLB’s team winning percentage
(see Figure 1-2).
Step 1: We begin by entering the pos­si­ble values of exp (1, 1.1, ​. . . ​, 3)
in the cell range N7:N26. To enter t­ hese values we simply enter 1 in
N7 and 1.1 in N8 and select the cell range N7:N8. Now we drag the
cross in the lower right-­hand corner of N8 down to N26.
Step 2: In cell O6 we enter the formula we want to loop through
and calculate for dif­f er­ent values of exp by entering the formula = J1.
Then we select the “­table range” N6:O26.
Step 3: Now we select Data T ­ able from the What If section of the
ribbon’s Data tab.

Step 4: We leave the row input cell portion of the dialog box
blank but select cell G1 (which contains the value of exp) as the col-
umn input cell. ­After selecting OK we see the results shown in Fig-
ure 1-2. In effect, Excel has placed the values 1, 1.1, ​. . . ​, 3 into cell G1
and computed our MAD for each listed value of exp.
 CHAPTER 2

WHO HAD A BETTER YEAR:

MIKE TROUT OR KRIS BRYANT?
The Runs Created Approach

At age 24, Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout won the 2016
American League Most Valuable Player award for the second time in
his ­career. Also at age 24, Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs won the
2016 National League Most Valuable Player award. ­Table 2.1 shows
their key statistics:
Recall that a batter’s slugging percentage is given by
Total Bases
Slugging Percentage = , where
At Bats

Total Bases = Singles + 2 * (Doubles) + 3 * (­Triples) + 4 * (Home Runs).

We see in Table 2-1 that Trout had a higher batting average than
Bryant. However, Bryant had a slightly higher slugging percent-
age since he hit more doubles and home runs. Bryant also had 54
more at bats than Trout and three more hits. So, which player had
a better hitting year?
Runs Created13

­T A B L E 2 . 1
Mike Trout and Kris Bryant 2016 Statistics
Event Trout (2016) Bryant (2016)
At Bats 549 603
Batting Average .315 .292
Slugging Percentage .550 .554
Hits 173 176
Singles 107 99
Doubles 32 35
­Triples 5 3
Home Runs 29 39
Walks + Hit by Pitcher 127 93

We know that when a batter is hitting, he can cause good t­ hings

(like hits or walks) to happen or bad t­ hings (outs) to happen. To
compare hitters, we must develop a metric which mea­sures how
the relative frequency of a batter’s good events and bad events influ-
ences the number of runs the team scores.
In 1979 Bill James developed the first version of his famous Runs
Created formula in an attempt to compute the number of runs
“created” by a hitter during the course of a season. The most easily
obtained data we have available to determine how batting events
influence runs scored is season-­long team batting statistics. A sample
of the complete data from 2010–2016 found in the worksheet Fig 2-1
of the workbook Chapter2mathleticsfiles.xlsx is shown in Figure 2-1.
James realized t­ here should be a way to predict the runs for
each team from hits, singles, 2Bs, 3Bs, HRs, outs, and BBs + HBPs.1

1. ​Of course, this leaves out t­ hings like sacrifice hits, sacrifice flies, stolen bases,
and caught stealings. See http://­danagonistes​.­blogspot​.­com​/­2004​/­10​/­brief​-­history​
-­of​-r­ un​-e­ stimation​-r­ uns​.­html for an excellent summary of the evolution of runs
created.
 14Chapter 2

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N
1 Team Runs At Bats Hits Singles 2B 3B HR BB+HBP
2 ARI 752 5665 1479 948 285 56 190 513
3 ATL 649 5514 1404 960 295 27 122 561 RC Formula =(D5+I5)*(E5+2*F5+3*G5+4*H5)/(C5+I5)
4 BAL 744 5524 1413 889 265 6 253 512
5 BOS 878 5670 1598 1022 343 25 208 601 RC 916.9805 917
6 CHC 808 5503 1409 887 293 30 199 752 Actual 878
7 CHW 686 5550 1428 950 277 33 168 508 Error –39
8 CIN 716 5487 1403 929 277 33 164 504 % Error –0.04442
9 CLE 777 5484 1435 913 308 29 185 580
10 COL 845 5614 1544 975 318 47 204 534
11 DET 750 5526 1476 983 252 30 211 546
12 HOU 724 5545 1367 849 291 29 198 601
13 KCR 675 5552 1450 1006 264 33 147 427

FIGURE 2.1 Selected Team Batting Data for 2016 Season.

Using intuition James came up with the following relatively s­ imple

formula:
(Hits + Walks + HBPs) * (Total Bases)
Runs Created = (1)
(At Bats + Walks + HBPs)
As we w ­ ill soon see, (1) does an amazingly good job of predicting
how many runs a team scores in a season from ­these components.
What is the rationale for (1)? To score runs you need to have runners
on base and then you need to advance them ­toward the home plate.
(Hits + Walks + HBPs) is basically the number of base runners the
Total Bases
team w ­ ill have in a season. mea­sures the rate
AB + Walks + HBP
at which runners are advanced per plate appearance. Therefore
(1) is multiplying the number of base runners by the rate at which
they are advanced. Using the information in Figure 2-1 we can com-
pute Runs Created for the 2016 Boston Red Sox:
(1598 + 601) * (1022 + 2(343) + 3(25) + 4(208))
Runs Created = ≅ 917
(5670 + 601)
Actually, the 2016 Boston Red Sox scored 878 runs, so Runs Cre-
ated overestimated the a­ ctual number of runs by around 4%. The
TeamRC worksheet in the file Teams.xlsx calculates runs created
Runs Created15

for each team during the 2010–2016 seasons and compares runs cre-
ated to ­actual runs scored. We find that Runs Created was off by
an average of 21 runs per team. Since the average team scored 693
runs, this is an average error of about 3% when we try to use (1) to
predict Team Runs Scored. It is amazing that this ­simple, intuitively
appealing formula does such a good job of predicting runs scored by
a team. Even though more complex versions of Runs Created more
accurately predict ­actual runs scored, the simplicity of (1) has caused
this formula to still be widely used by the baseball community.

BEWARE BLIND EXTRAPOLATION!

The prob­lem with any version of Runs Created is that the formula
is based on team statistics. A typical team has a batting average of
.250, hits HRs on 3% of all plate appearances, and has a walk or HBP
in around 10% of all plate appearances. Contrast t­hese numbers to
Miguel Cabrera’s ­great 2013 season in which he had a batting average
of .348, hit an HR on approximately 7% of all plate appearances, and
received a walk or HBP during approximately 15% of his plate appear-
ances. One of the first ideas we teach in business statistics courses is to
not use a relationship that is fit to a dataset to make predictions for
data that is very dif­fer­ent from the data used to fit the relationship.
Following this logic, we should not expect a Runs Created formula
based on team data to accurately predict the runs created by a super-
star such as Miguel Cabrera or a very poor player. In Chapter 4 we w ­ ill
remedy this prob­lem with a dif­fer­ent type of model.

TROUT VS. BRYANT

Despite this caveat, let’s plunge ahead and use (1) to compare Mike
Trout’s 2016 season to Kris Bryant’s 2016 season. For fun we also com-
puted Runs Created for Miguel Cabrera’s ­great 2013 season. See the
worksheet Figure 2-2 of the workbook Chapter2mathleticsfiles.xlsx.
From our data, we calculated that Mike Trout created 134 runs
and Kris Bryant created 129 runs. Cabrera created 148 runs in 2013.
 16Chapter 2

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
1 Player At Bats Hits 1B 2B 3B HR Estimated Outs Other Outs BB+HBP Runs Created Game Outs Used Runs Created / Game
2 Bryant (2016) 603 176 99 35 3 39 416.146 11 93 129.09 427.146 8.10837519
3 Trout (2016) 549 173 107 32 5 29 366.118 17 127 134.02 383.118 9.385763732
4 Cabrera (2013) 555 193 102 26 1 44 352.01 21 95 147.54 373.01 10.61264318
10 J2 Formula =(C2+J2)*(D2+2*E2+3*F2+4*G2)/(B2+J2)
11 K2 Formula =I2+H2
12 L2 Formula =K2/(L2/26.83)

FIGURE 2.2 Runs Created for Trout, Bryant, and Cabrera.

This indicates that Trout had a slightly better hitting year in 2016 than
Bryant. Miguel Cabrera’s 2013 season was superior to both Trout and
Bryant’s 2016 year according to this Runs Created approach.

RUNS CREATED PER GAME

A major prob­lem with any Runs Created metric is that a mediocre

hitter with 700 plate appearances might create more runs than a
superstar with 400 plate appearances.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
6 Player At Bats Hits 1B 2B 3B HR Outs BB+HBP Runs Created Game Outs Used Runs Created / Game
7 Christian 700 190 170 10 1 9 497.4 20 66.79 497.4 3.60
8 Gregory 400 120 90 15 0 15 272.8 20 60.00 272.8 5.90

FIGURE 2.3 Christian and Gregory’s Fictitious Statistics.

As shown in Figure 2-3 (see worksheet Fig2_3 of the workbook

­Chapter2mathleticsfiles.xlsx), we have created two hy­po­thet­i­cal­
players: Christian and Gregory. Christian had a batting average
of .257 while Gregory had a batting average of .300. Gregory
walked more often per plate appearance and had more extra base
hits. Yet Runs Created says Christian was a better player. To solve
this prob­lem, we need to understand that hitters consume a scarce
resource—­outs. During most games a team bats for nine innings and
gets 3 * 9 = 27 outs.2 We can now compute Runs Created Per Game.

2. ​Since the home team does not always bat in the ninth inning and some games
go into extra innings, average outs per game is not exactly 27. For the years 2010–
2016, average outs per game was 26.83.
Runs Created17

To see how this works let’s look at Trout’s 2016 data. See Figure 2-2
and the PlayerRC worksheet in file Teams.xlsx.
How did we compute outs? Essentially all at bats except for hits
and errors result in an out. Approximately 1.8% of all at bats result in
errors. Therefore, we computed outs as at bats − hits − .018(at bats).
Hitters also create “extra” outs through sacrifice hits, sacrifice bunts,
caught stealings, and grounding into double plays. In 2016 Trout cre-
ated 17 of ­these extra outs. As shown in cell L3 Trout “used” up 383.11
383.11
outs for the Angels. This is equivalent to = 14.28 games. There-
134.02 26.83
fore, Trout created = 9.39 runs per game. More formally:
14.28
Runs Created
Runs Created Per Game = .982(At Bats) − Hits + GIDP + SF + SH + CS (2)
26.83

Equation (2) simply states that Runs Created per game is Runs Cre-
ated by a batter divided by Number of Games worth of outs used
by the batter. Figure 2-2 shows that Miguel Cabrera created 10.61
runs per game. Figure 2-2 also makes it clear that Trout was a more
valuable hitter than Bryant in 2016. Specifically, Trout created 9.39
runs per game while Bryant created approximately 1.28 fewer runs
per game (8.11 runs). We also see that runs created per game by the
notional Gregory is 2.29 runs (5.88 − 3.59) better per game than fic-
titious Christian. This resolves the prob­lem that ordinary runs cre-
ated ranked Christian ahead of Gregory.
Our estimate of runs created per game of 9.39 for Mike Trout in-
dicates that we believe a team consisting of nine Mike Trouts would
score an average of 9.39 runs per game. Since no team consists of nine
players like Trout, a more relevant question might be, how many runs
would Mike Trout create when batting with eight “average hitters”? In
his book Win Shares (2002) Bill James came up with a more complex
version of runs created that answers this question. We ­will provide our
own answer to this question in Chapters 3 and 4.
 CHAPTER 3

EVALUATING HITTERS
BY LINEAR WEIGHTS
In Chapter 2 we described how knowledge of a hitter’s at bats,
BBs + HBPs, singles, 2Bs, 3Bs, and HRs allows us to compare hitters
via the runs created metric. As we w ­ ill see in this chapter, the linear
weights approach can also be used to compare hitters. In business
and science, we often try and predict a given variable (called Y or
the dependent variable) from a set of in­de­pen­dent variables (call the
in­de­pen­dent variables x1, x2, ​. . . ​, an). Usually we try to find weights
B1, B2, ​. . . ​, Bn and a constant that make the quantity

Constant + B1x1 + B2x2 + . . . + Bnxn

a good predictor for the dependent variable.

Statisticians call the search for the weights and the constant that
best predict Y a multiple linear regression. Sabermetricians (­people
who apply math to baseball) call the weights linear weights.
For our team batting data for year 2010–2016,

Y = dependent variable = runs scored in a season.

Linear Weights19

For in­de­pen­dent variables we ­will use BBs + HBPs (walks + hits

by pitcher), singles, 2Bs, 3Bs, HRs, SBs (stolen bases), and CSs (caught
stealings). Thus, our prediction equation w ­ ill look like

Predicted runs for season = Constant + B1(BB + HBP) +

B2(Singles) + B3(2B) + B4(3B) + B5(HR) + B6(SB) + B7(CS). (1)

Let’s see if we can use basic arithmetic to come up with a crude esti-
mate of the value of an HR. For the years 2010–2016 in a game an aver-
age MLB team has 38 batters come to the plate and score 4.3 runs.
So roughly one out of nine batters scores. During a game the average
MLB team has around 12 batters reach base. Therefore 4.3/12 or
around 36% of all runners score. If we assume an average of one base
runner on base when an HR is hit then a Home Run creates “runs”
in the following fashion,

• The batter scores all the time instead of 1/8 of the time, which
creates 7/8 of a run.
• An average of one base runner ­will score 100% of the time
instead of 37% of the time, which creates .63 runs.

This leads to a crude estimate that a home run is worth around

.87 + .63 = 1.5 runs. We w
­ ill soon see that our regression model pro-
vides a similar estimate for the value of a home run.
We can use the Regression tool in Excel to search for the set of
weights and constant that enable (1) to give the best forecast for Runs
Scored. See the chapter appendix for an explanation of how to use
the Regression tool. Essentially Excel’s Regression tool finds the
constant and set of weights that minimize the sum over all teams of
(­actual runs scored − predicted runs scored)2.1 The results of our re-
gression are in sheet MLRof workbook Chapter3.xlsx. See Figure 3-1.

1. ​If we did not square the prediction error for each team, we would find that
the errors for teams that scored more runs than predicted would be cancelled out by the
errors for teams that scored fewer runs than predicted.
 20Chapter 3

A B C D E F G
1 SUMMARY OUTPUT
2
3 Regression Statistics
4 Multiple R 0.949366525
5 R Square 0.9012968
6 Adjusted R Square 0.897876392
7 Standard Error 22.07547927
8 Observations 210
9
10 ANOVA
11 df SS MS F Significance F
12 Regression 7 898893.5132 128413.359 263.505645 6.66264E–98
13 Residual 202 98440.01059 487.3267851
14 Total 209 997333.5238
15
16 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P–value Lower 95% Upper 95%
17 Intercept –411.8133561 33.00675506 –12.47663866 7.3423E–27 –476.8953293 –346.731383
18 BB+HBP 0.326171191 0.026991877 12.08405016 1.1813E–25 0.272949219 0.37939316
19 1B 0.459107774 0.028209869 16.2747222 1.325E–38 0.403484193 0.51473135
20 2B 0.805141015 0.070539419 11.41405797 1.31E–23 0.666052984 0.94422905
21 3B 1.072129559 0.185083303 5.792686554 2.6244E–08 0.707186489 1.43707263
22 HR 1.428105264 0.052270693 27.32133795 9.1608E–70 1.325039094 1.53117143
23 SB 0.250044999 0.063490957 3.938277396 0.00011296 0.124854967 0.37523503
24 CS –0.254380304 0.190576335 –1.334794818 0.18344599 –0.630154411 0.1213938

FIGURE 3.1 Regression Output with CS and SB Included.

Cells B17:B24 (listed u

­ nder Coefficients) show that the best set of
linear weights and constant (Intercept cell gives the constant) to
predict runs scored in a season is given by

Predicted Runs = −411.81 + 46(Singles) + .81(2Bs) + 1.07(3Bs) +

1.43(HRs) + .33(BBs + HBPs) + .25(SBs) − .25(CSs). (2)

The highlighted R-­squared value in cell B5 indicates that our in­de­

pen­dent variables (singles, 2Bs, 3Bs, HRs, BBs + HBPs, SBs, and CSs)
explain roughly 90% of the variation in the number of runs a team
actually scores during a season.
Equation (2) indicates that a single “creates” .46 runs, a double
creates .81 runs, a ­triple creates 1.07 runs, a home run creates 1.43 runs,
a BB or HBP creates .33 runs, and a stolen base creates .25 runs,
while being caught stealing “eliminates” .25 runs. We see that our HR
Linear Weights21

weight agrees with our ­simple calculation of 1.5, and the fact that a
double is worth more than a single but less than two singles makes
sense. We also observe that the fact that a single is worth more than
a walk makes sense ­because singles often advance runners two bases.
It is also reasonable to see that a ­triple is worth more than a double
but less than an HR.

T H E M E A N I N G O F P - ­V A L U E S

When we run a regression, we should always check that each in­de­

pen­dent variable has a significant effect on the dependent variable.
We do this by looking at each in­de­pen­dent variable’s p-­value. Th
­ ese
are shown in column E of Figure 3-1. Each in­de­pen­dent variable
has a p-­value between 0 and 1. Any in­de­pen­dent variable with a
small p-­value (traditionally small means <.05, even though this
choice has been arbitrary) is considered to be a useful predictor
of the dependent variable (­after adjusting for the other in­de­pen­
dent variables). Essentially the p-­value for an in­de­pen­dent variable
gives the probability that (in the presence of all other in­de­pen­dent
variables used to fit the regression) the in­de­pen­dent variable does
not enhance our predictive ability (or equivalently the probability
that the value of the weight is obtained purely by chance, and
in real­ity the coefficient is 0). For example, ­there is only around
one chance in 1023 that doubles do not enhance our ability for
predicting runs scored even a­ fter we know singles, t­ riples, HRs,
BBs + HBPs, CSs, and SBs. We find from Figure 3-1 that all in­de­pen­
dent variables except for CS have p-­values that are very close to 0.
For example, singles have a p-­value of 1.33 × 10−38. This means that
singles almost surely help us predict team runs even a­ fter adjusting
for all other in­de­pen­dent variables. However, the high p-­value for
CS indicates that we should drop it from the regression and rerun
the analy­sis. The resulting regression is shown in Figure 3-2 (see
sheet MLRnoCS of workbook Ch3Data.xlsx).
All our in­de­pen­dent variables have p-­values <.05, so they all pass
the test of statistical significance. We ­will now use the following
 22Chapter 3

A B C D E F G
1 SUMMARY OUTPUT
2
3 Regression Statistics
4 Multiple R 0.948907909
5 R Square 0.900426219
6 Adjusted R Square 0.897483152
7 Standard Error 22.11794065
8 Observations 210
9
10 ANOVA
11 df SS MS F Significance F
12 Regression 6 898025.2542 149670.8757 305.948214 8.8346E–99
13 Residual 203 99308.26962 489.2032986
14 Total 209 997333.5238
15
16 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P–value Lower 95% Upper 95%
17 Intercept –422.3214856 32.11582993 –13.14994775 5.654E–29 –485.6448728 –358.9980984
18 BB+HBP 0.328427033 0.026990732 12.16814092 6.1158E–26 0.275208898 0.381645169
19 1B 0.462425312 0.028154216 16.4247273 3.9961E–39 0.406913115 0.51793751
20 2B 0.809004928 0.070615562 11.45646795 9.2244E–24 0.669770893 0.948238964
21 3B 1.056646807 0.185074775 5.709296723 3.9868E–08 0.691731384 1.421562229
22 HR 1.432093994 0.052285581 27.38984579 4.1936E–70 1.329001529 1.535186459
23 SB 0.204454976 0.05362427 3.812732098 0.00018226 0.098722992 0.31018696

FIGURE 3.2 p-­Values for Linear Weights Regression.

equation (derived from cells B17:B23 of Figure 3-2) to predict runs

scored by a team in a season,

Predicted Runs =
−422.32 + .46(Singles) + .81(2Bs) + 1.06(3Bs)
+ 1.43(HRs) + .33(BBs + HBPs) + .205(SBs). (3)

Note our R2 is still 90%, even ­after dropping CS as an in­de­pen­dent

variable. This is unsurprising ­because the high p-­values for CS indi-
cated that it would not help us predict Runs Scored a­ fter we knew
the other in­de­pen­dent variables.

ACCURACY OF LINEAR WEIGHTS

VS. RUNS CREATED

Do linear weights do a better job of forecasting runs scored than

Bill James’s original runs created formula? We see in cell E2 of
­Figure 3-3 (see sheet Accuracy LW of workbook Ch3Data.xlsx) that
Another random document with
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 remember to thank him. The tidings reached his wife, who was
Birth of a son.
staying with her relatives in France, just after she had borne him
a son; and such was the general admiration that Louis XIV. and Henrietta Maria,
the mother of Charles II., were willing to answer for the child at the font. He was
named James Louis, in honour of his grandfather and his illustrious sponsor.
No successes against the invader could allay the internal broils of Poland.
Although Casimir had lost his queen in the spring of the year 1667, the outcry
against the French influence continued unabated. On one occasion the king so
far forgot himself as to exclaim, in full diet, “If you are weary of me, I am no less
weary of you.” At length, bowed down by domestic sorrow,
Abdication of
John Casimir. tormented by scruples of conscience,[37] and disgusted at the
turbulence of the nobles, he came to the resolution, which those
words seemed to imply, of laying aside the crown. He took farewell of the Diet in
a dignified speech, in which he asked only for six feet of earth, where his bones
might rest in peace. If he had offended any, he begged them to forgive him as
freely as he forgave those who had offended him. The assembly was profoundly
affected; but, although Sobieski and others from motives of gratitude besought
him to retain the crown, it does not appear that this was the wish of the nation.
We are told that on the day after his abdication the people hardly paid him the
respect due to a gentleman;[38] and much ill-feeling was shown in the Diet, when
the question of his pension came before it. After remaining in Poland too long for
his own credit[39] he retired to France, where Louis XIV. gave him the Abbey of
St. Germain. He was the last of the dynasty of Jagellon,[40] which had reigned in
Poland nearly three hundred years.
The number of aspirants to the vacant throne was, as usual,
Candidates for considerable. The Czar Alexis massed 80,000 troops on the
the throne.
frontier in support of the candidature of his son, but the Poles
took little notice either of him or his manœuvres. The Prince of Condé was
supported by Sobieski and many of the Senate, but the prejudice against a
Frenchman was universal among the lesser nobles. The two candidates most in
favour were Prince Charles of Lorraine, secretly supported by Austria, and Philip,
Duke of Neuberg, who, though sixty years of age, was set up as the real choice
alike of the King of France and the Emperor. The personal advantages of the
former were far superior to those of his rival; he was young, courageous, and
affable; but he had neither money nor lands, while the offers of the Duke of
Neuberg were most advantageous to the state. The nobles, fully
Disorder on the alive to the value of their votes, postponed their decision till May,
field of election.
1669; and meanwhile the field of election was as usual a scene of
wild confusion. A large party clamoured for the exclusion of the Prince of Condé,
and, although Sobieski protested against such a measure as interfering with the
freedom of the proceedings, it was carried through by the violence of its
promoters. At length the tumult rose to such a height that Sobieski, as Grand
Marshal, threatened to fire upon the rioters. Order was thus partly restored; and
soon the cry of a Piast! a Piast! was heard among the crowd. Sobieski might well
suppose that no Piast (or native Pole) would be thought so worthy as himself to
wear the crown, but perhaps he had made himself too unpopular during the
election. The cry was followed by the proposal of Michael Wiesnowiesçki—a
young noble barely thirty years of age, who had neither virtues, nor abilities, nor
riches to recommend him to their suffrages. Yet such was the
Proclamation of fickle excitability of the assembly that he was chosen by
King Michael.
acclamation; and, although he implored to be spared the honour,
and even attempted to escape, he was dragged to the throne, and invested with
the supreme authority.
The reign of such a king could scarcely be prosperous. Ere long the nobles
had cause to regret that they had not chosen the man who of all native Poles
was worthiest to hold the sceptre. Michael himself, when mounted upon the
throne, could not but see that he was far from being the first man in the republic.
The thought wounded his pride, which was soon to become as conspicuous as
his previous humility. He hated Sobieski with a hatred the more
His hatred of violent that he was unable to abridge his powers. He refused the
Sobieski,
grand coach-and-six which it was the established custom for the
general to present to the new sovereign.[41] He plotted with Christopher and
Michael Paz, respectively chancellor and grand general of Lithuania, against the
man with whom they had a long-standing family feud.[42] But
Who was
popular with the Sobieski, besides having the army at his back, was zealously
army. supported by the greater nobles, and although a struggle
appeared imminent the king’s party forbore for a time. Efforts
were made to promote a reconciliation by marrying Michael to the daughter of
Sobieski’s sister;[43] but the plan was overthrown by the arrival of an ambassador
from Leopold to offer him the hand of the Arch-Duchess Eleanor.
Marriage of The honour was too tempting for the weak-minded king; he
Michael.
accepted from the emperor the order of the Golden Fleece, and
hastily concluded the marriage without the sanction of the republic. Loud were
the complaints against this breach of the constitution,[44] even among his own
supporters, the lesser nobles. Austria had always been distrusted by the Poles,
but at this moment there was a special reason for her unpopularity.
On the 2nd of September, 1669, after a most memorable
Siege of defence of more than twenty years, the city and island of Candia
Candia.
Designs of surrendered to the Turkish fleet, commanded by the Grand Vizier,
Ahmed Köprili. Ahmed Köprili. The vast designs of this able minister were the
terror of Europe. Five years earlier (1664) he had concluded with
Austria a twenty years’ peace, on terms most favourable to the Turks; and it was
well known that he only awaited the fall of Candia to resume his schemes against
Italy and the empire. That result was now achieved, a peace was concluded with
Venice, and he was free to turn the Ottoman arms towards the west and north.
The Marquis de St. André,[45] who had commanded in Candia,
Terror in Europe
at wrote into France that Köprili had opened the way to Rome, and
by what he knew of that general’s humour, he doubted not but he
had a design to turn St. Peter’s church into the Grand Signor’s stables. It is even
said that Pope Clement IX. died of grief at the Turkish successes.
The rise of These fears were doubtless in part well founded. During the
Turkey.
Thirty Years’ War, and the intestine struggles which succeeded it
in many of the Christian states, the Turkish power had steadily increased. Two
Grand Viziers of consummate ability, Mahommed Köprili and his son Ahmed, had
strengthened the empire by numerous fortresses, had sternly quelled the
frequent revolts, and had introduced a spirit of order and activity hitherto seldom
seen among the Turks. If the jealousies of France and Austria were to continue, a
wise vizier might well hope ere long to make a tremendous onslaught upon
Christendom. It is not surprising therefore that, after the fall of Candia, the Poles
should resent the Emperor’s crafty aim to secure their taking up arms in his
defence.
But the danger was nearer than they imagined. It threatened
Revolt of the them as usual from the quarter of the Cossacks, who had never
Cossacks.
since their first revolt in 1648 preserved a real peace with Poland.
They viewed with dismay the accession to the throne of a son of their former
oppressor, Jeremiah Wiesnowiesçki, and imagining that his first object would be
to recover his lost estates, they rushed to arms. Immediately after
Sobieski’s the coronation of Michael (October, 1669) Sobieski was called to
campaign of
1670. the frontiers. Acting with his usual vigour, he sowed discord in the
enemy’s ranks, and drove them beyond the Dniester. So
unexpected were these victories that the Vice-Chancellor, writing to him in the
king’s name, says: “Envy itself is compelled to confess that, after God, you alone,
though at the head of so small a force, have once more saved Poland.” But the
king and his general could not agree as to the measures to be
Michael refuses taken with the subdued Cossacks. Sobieski was most anxious for
a policy of
concession. a policy of concession. He had seen signs among them of a
disposition to call in the Turks, which they had attempted to do in
1651, and he hoped to avert such a disaster. But Michael was wholly deaf to
argument. Finding that the Diet was likely to declare against him, he easily
procured its dissolution by the veto (April 17th); and the event which Sobieski
dreaded came to pass. Doroscensko, the Cossack chief, losing
The Cossacks all hope of justice from Poland, and persuaded by his
apply to the
Porte. metropolitan that he would find it at the patriarchate of the East,
went to Constantinople to throw himself at the feet of the Sultan.
Fortune seemed to play into the hands of Ahmed Köprili. The
Köprili prepares restless janissaries needed employment, and he preferred a
for war with
gradual advance upon Austria to a premature declaration of war
Poland. with her. Poland seemed to offer a splendid field. Proclaiming the
Sultan the champion of the oppressed, he prepared a great
armament against the oppressor, and created Doroscensko hospodar of the
Ukraine. But his plans required time to be fully matured, and in the meanwhile he
encouraged the Tartars to burst into Poland (1671).
The republic was at this moment torn in pieces by the violence
Austrian of the Austrian and French factions. Leopold had followed up his
influence in
Poland. success in the marriage of his sister by surrounding the weak
Michael with creatures of his own, who used all their arts to
persuade him that the French monarch had been guilty of bringing in the Tartars
against him. Great efforts were made to include Sobieski in these accusations.
His second general, Demetrius Wiesnowiesçki, the king’s cousin, who had long
been jealous of him, actually put Tartar captives to the torture to obtain evidence,
but without success. Sobieski, though deeply indignant, contented himself with
publishing a scornful manifesto, and then hastened to defend the frontiers. At the
meeting of the Diet (September 20th) the deputies demanded the dismissal of
the Austrian courtiers; and the primate Prazmowski vehemently accused the king
of treachery to the nation, and of breaking his coronation oaths.
Michael calls Terrified at this attack, Michael called out the Pospolite, which
out the
Pospolite. was devoted to his interests; but he paid no attention to the
entreaties of Sobieski that he would use it against the invader. He
could not bring himself to save his kingdom at the expense of strengthening his
rival.
Sobieski determined to act without him. Equipping the regular
“Miraculous army at his own cost, he appeared to be covering Kaminiec, the
campaign” of
Sobieski. key of south-eastern Poland, but when the Tartar hordes had
passed into Volhynia, he marched with surprising celerity through
Podolia, and cut them off from their allies, the Cossacks. Trembling for their
retreat the barbarians broke up their camp, and hurried out of the country as fast
as they could, while Sobieski made a triumphant progress through the Ukraine,
capturing several towns which had not seen a Polish army for twenty years, and
re-establishing communications with the friendly Moldavians. Europe justly
termed this “the miraculous campaign;” yet it was accomplished almost solely by
the strenuous exertions of the commander. His troops were in the worst possible
condition, the Lithuanian army had disbanded without joining him, and the
jealousies of the different palatinates had prevented their sending him any
succours. He now begged for reinforcements to enable him to dictate peace to
the Tartars, and to fortify Poland against the Turks; but the infatuated malice of
the king made it difficult for him even to keep together the troops under his
orders. At this juncture fatigue, and perhaps chagrin at the
December, treatment which he received, laid Sobieski on the bed of sickness
1671. He falls
sick. at Zolkiew; and the king redoubled his efforts to separate him
from the army. The attempt recoiled upon his own head. That
body at once moved their winter quarters to the Palatinate of Russia, and formed
themselves into a confederation to protect their beloved general.
But the king’s attention was soon most unpleasantly diverted
The Sultan elsewhere. In the same month (December) an envoy from the
declares war
against Poland. Porte arrived at Warsaw, and announcing that the Cossacks had
been taken under the protection of the Sublime Porte, demanded
reparation for the injuries which they had suffered. No resource was left to the
king’s party but to treat this as a mere blind intended to conceal from Austria the
Turkish advance on the side of Hungary.
The patience of the great nobles was now completely
Confederation exhausted. Under the leadership of Prazmowski they entered into
against the
king. a confederation to dethrone the king. The advice of the primate
was that they should take the emperor and the Polish queen into
their counsels, and provide some candidate who would be ready to accept the
queen’s hand. Eleanor was consulted, and professed herself devoted to the plan,
if they would choose Charles of Lorraine, to whom she was deeply attached.
Sobieski, now convalescent, was at length made acquainted with
Joined by these projects. He strongly opposed any scheme which would
Sobieski.
place the country under the espionage of Austria; but being firmly
convinced of the necessity of a revolution, he exhorted them to choose the brave
Duke of Longueville, nephew of Condé. Prazmowski, nothing daunted, sent the
queen the duke’s portrait, and was assured of her acquiescence. Everything
seemed favourable for the coup d’état; the Diet went out in a body to meet
Sobieski; and the rejoicings at his recovery were universal, when suddenly news
arrived that the Duke of Longueville had been slain at the passage of the Rhine
(June 12th, 1672). The party of the king, and the Lithuanians, who had trembled
at the coming storm, took fresh courage, while the confederates were
proportionately disconcerted. Michael began to negotiate for Austrian troops to
employ against the Grand General; but in the midst of the
Invasion of the confusion it was announced that Mahomet IV. in person, with the
Sultan.
Grand Vizier and 200,000 men, was advancing upon Kaminiec.
The king’s party loudly averred that this was a fabrication of their opponents; the
Lithuanians swore to defend him to the death; and Sobieski, with
Sobieski others of the leading nobles, was proscribed. This violence raised
proscribed.
a similar storm in the Polish army in Russia, who surrounded their
general, and swore to follow him to the end of the earth. “I accept your oaths,”
was his answer, “and the first thing I require of you is to save Poland.”
Yet Poland seemed lost beyond all hope. Sobieski’s troops scarcely amounted
to 30,000 men, and there was now no chance of uniting them to the Pospolite.
The Grand General flew to Kaminiec to reinforce and provision
The Sultan the garrison; but he was obliged to leave it to its fate, for the
takes Kaminiec,
governor, who belonged to the king’s party, refused to admit any
of his force. Kaminiec was the only great fortress which Poland possessed. Its
natural position—defended on one side by the river Smotrycz, and on the other
by an inaccessible cliff—was very strong; and the Poles constantly boasted that
God, who built it, would alone be able to take it. Yet so skilful were the Turkish
miners, after their long experience in Candia, that it surrendered within a month.
The consternation at Warsaw was fearful. The king assembled the Pospolite at
Golemba, near the capital; but his one aim was to conclude peace on any terms.
The Sultan, sending on an advanced guard to besiege Leopol,
And advances the capital of Russia, encamped at Buczacz, where amongst the
on Leopol.
Podolian mountains he enjoyed his favourite pastime of hunting.
Meanwhile Sobieski had not been idle. A large body of Tartars had passed into
Volhynia in support of the Turks, and, after loading themselves with spoil and with
a vast train of captives, prepared to beat a retreat. Hovering always on their rear,
Sobieski struck a blow whenever it was practicable, and finally caught them in a
defile at Kalusz, in the Carpathian mountains. After a great
Victory of carnage he dispersed them, recovered the spoil, and liberated
Sobieski over
the Tartars. nearly 30,000 Polish captives. He then formed the
His attack upon daring plan of a night attack on Mahomet’s camp.
the Sultan’s
camp. By swift and silent marches he approached
unperceived, and burst with his cavalry on the
imperial tents. For a moment the quarters of the Sultanas were in imminent
danger; but the arrival of succours put an end to the raid.
With his small force Sobieski could do no more than harass the
Peace of Turkish army, yet it was with indignation that he heard that the
Buczacz.
king had concluded a peace at Buczacz (October 18th). Michael
concealed the terms as long as he could; and this increased the suspicions of the
Grand General that they were dishonourable to the country. At length it was
found that Podolia, the Ukraine, and Kaminiec had been ceded to the Porte, and
that the king had consented to pay an annual tribute of 22,000 ducats. In return
for this the Vizier withdrew his army from Polish soil; but he established a vast
military camp with 80,000 men at Kotzim, on the Dniester, to overawe the
vanquished nation. By this treaty, which he had no power to make without the
sanction of the republic, the king of Poland reduced himself to the condition of a
vassal of the Sultan.
Yet the leaders of the Pospolite at Golemba, who dreaded
Hostility of the
nothing so much as a long campaign, were loud in his defence.
Pospolite to
Sobieski. Suspecting that Sobieski would not accept the peace, they
renewed against him the sentence of proscription, and
confiscated his estates. On receiving intelligence of these attacks, Louis XIV.
offered him a French dukedom and a marshal’s bâton; but Sobieski would not
forsake his country. Indeed his position did not justify it; for his party grew
stronger day by day, while the Pospolite, ill-furnished with provisions, and rent in
pieces by faction, gradually melted away. At length the queen took on herself the
part of a mediator, and she was seconded by the Lithuanians, who were weary of
anarchy. It then appeared how strong a hold Sobieski had upon the affections of
the people. When his exploits during the war became generally
Popularity of known there was an immense reaction in his favour. His personal
Sobieski.
enemies, among whom may be reckoned the
Plot against king, viewed this with the utmost uneasiness, and
him.
a few of them concocted an atrocious plot against
him. They suborned a poor noble, named Lodzinski, to come forward in the Diet
and declare that Sobieski had sold Kaminiec to the Turks for 1,200,000 florins,
and that this money had been seen in waggons on the way to its destination.
This calumny raised the Diet to the highest pitch of excitement, and they would
have put the slanderer in irons but for the intervention of the king. The army
declared that they would wash out the insult with blood; but Sobieski calmed
them, and proceeded to Warsaw to demand a trial. He was welcomed with
acclamations; the palace of Wiasdow, decorated with all the trophies of
Zolkiewski, was placed at his disposal; and Michael sent the Grand Chamberlain
to pay him his compliments. Lodzinski, when brought before a
Discovered and tribunal of senators and deputies, lost all courage, and confessed
punished.
that he had invented the story for the sum of 1,000 francs—
promised him by certain of the nobles. He was condemned to death; but the
sentence could not be carried out without the consent of the Grand Marshal, and
he was therefore suffered to live. The nobles who had been his instigators had to
ask pardon on their knees.
The first object of Sobieski in this sudden blaze of his popularity
He persuades was to procure the rupture of the peace of Buczacz. He at once
the Diet not to
accept the published a memorandum, setting forth necessary reforms in the
peace. administration and the army, and promising that their adoption
would ensure a successful struggle against the Turks. The Diet
sent him a message in high-flown Polish rhetoric, in which they begged for the
presence of that hero “who, if the system of Pythagoras be true, seems to unite
in his own frame the souls of all the great captains and good citizens of the past.”
He took his seat amid great enthusiasm (March 14th), and easily persuaded the
deputies to follow his advice. They did not now dream of paying the tribute. They
decreed an army of 60,000 men, the establishment of a war-tax, and the
despatch of embassies for foreign aid, and finally placed in the hands of Sobieski
full powers both for peace and war. This was in effect to put aside the king, and
make the Grand Marshal Regent; but no voice was raised against the proposal.
Since there was only a trifling sum remaining in the exchequer,
Their Sobieski persuaded the Diet to use the treasure stored up as a
confidence in
him. reserve in the castle of Cracow. This, with an opportune subsidy
which arrived from the Pope, was deposited with him instead of
the Grand Treasurer, as the person most likely to use them to advantage.
 Such unbounded confidence carried with it a responsibility which
His difficulties. would have dared to face. Sobieski accepted it cheerfully, yet at
the outset of the campaign he had to meet two difficulties, which
he had not foreseen. His old enemy, Michael Paz, caused much delay by arriving
late with his Lithuanians (Sept. 16th); and at the last moment the king announced
that he should put himself at the head of the force. He came, and reviewed the
troops; but during the ceremony he was seized with illness; and the next morning
the Poles raised a hurra on seeing the “bonzuk,” or long lance, in front of the
Grand General’s tent in an upright position—a sure sign that the king had quitted
the army. The next day (October 11th), with a force of nearly 40,000 men, and
forty small field-pieces, Sobieski began his march.
His plan of the campaign, though simple, was boldly conceived.
His plan of the
Having heard that Caplan Pacha, with 30,000 men, was
campaign.
advancing through Moldavia to reinforce the camp at Kotzim, he
proposed to cut him off upon his march, and then to turn upon the camp itself. If
he should succeed in capturing it, he hoped to isolate Kaminiec, and so to take it
by blockade, and recover all that had been ceded to the Porte. He was not
dismayed at the lateness of the season; for he trusted that on this account the
Turks would be less willing to fight.
The banks of the Dniester were reached after three weeks’
March of the march, and here a mutiny broke out among the troops, which was
army.
industriously fomented by Michael Paz. They clamoured for rest
and provisions; Sobieski promised them both under the tents of the barbarians.
“My resolution,” said he, “is not to be shaken. I intend to bury myself here or to
conquer. You must do the same, or nothing can save you.” His firmness had the
desired effect. They crossed the Dniester and penetrated into the forest of
Bucovina; but Sobieski was obliged to alter his original plans. It would have been
madness to wait for Caplan Pacha and so give him time to join the camp; and yet
his undisciplined soldiery shrank from the inclement plains of Moldavia. He
therefore turned aside, and advanced at once on the entrenchments at Kotzim.
The castle of that name was strongly situated on the right bank
Castle and of the Dniester, about twelve miles from Kaminiec. Between this
camp of Kotzim.
and the advancing Poles, at the height of twenty feet from the
plain, was the vast fortified camp, unassailable on the side of the river, where the
rocks were steep, and surrounded on the other sides by a broad ravine. The
ground immediately in front of the entrenchments was marshy, and broken up by
rapid streams, and the Turks could sweep it from end to end with their admirable
artillery. Within the lines were ranged 80,000 men, the flower of the Turkish army,
most of them spahis and janissaries, under the command of the Seraskier[46]
Hussein.
The day after the Poles arrived (November 10th) Paz declared an assault to be
impracticable, and announced his intention to retire. Sobieski replied with truth
 that flight was not in their power except at the risk of
Insubordination extermination. The enterprise indeed seemed superhuman; but
of Paz.
the Grand General ranged his troops in order of battle with full
confidence of success. During the day a large body of Moldavians and
Wallachians,[47] who occupied a spot on the left of the Turkish camp, deserted to
the Poles, and greatly raised their drooping spirits. When night came on, the
troops were still kept under arms, although the weather was most severe. The
snow fell thickly, but Sobieski visited all the posts, and animated the men by his
cheerful manner. At length he reclined on the carriage of a cannon and waited for
the dawn.
It was the crisis of his great career; yet he could not but regard
Crisis in the scene as one of happy omen. On this spot, more than fifty
Sobieski’s life.
years before, his father had gained a splendid victory over the
Turks, which was followed by a long peace. Then indeed the Poles were the
defenders instead of the assailants of the entrenchments; but that only made the
victory in prospect seem a more glorious prize.
At length the day broke, and Sobieski observed the enemy’s
He attacks the lines much thinner than before. Many of the Turks, exhausted by
entrenchments.
the unwonted cold, had sought their tents, not dreaming for one
moment that the Poles would dare to attack them in daylight. “This is the moment
that I waited for,” cried Sobieski to his staff, and ordered at once a general
assault. After galloping down the lines with a few encouraging words, he alighted
from his horse, and led the infantry and his own dismounted dragoons against
the entrenchments. The Turks, whose attention was distracted by a false attack
on another side, left a weak point in his front, and Sobieski, though somewhat
bulky, was the first to scale the parapet. He was splendidly supported by his
dragoons; and the battle now raged in the midst of the tents. The infantry might
possibly have been surrounded, had not Jablonowski, Palatine of Russia, dashed
up a steep place with the best of the cavalry, and rushed to the rescue. Sobieski
was supplied with a horse, and the Turks now began to give way
Rout of the on all sides. Soliman Pacha, at the head of the janissaries, tried
Turks,
to retreat in good order to the plain; but he was charged by the
Lithuanians in front and by the Poles in the rear, and his fine troops were cut to
pieces. He is said to have himself fallen by the hand of Sobieski, who despoiled
him of his jewelled scimitar.[48] The Turks fled in confused masses to the bridge
leading to the castle; but Sobieski had provided against this by sending his
brother-in-law, Radziwill, with a large detachment to seize it. The only retreat now
left them was the steep rock on the river-side, from which thousands precipitated
themselves into the stream; but the Polish cavalry dashed in after
And complete them, and completed their destruction. The carnage lasted more
victory of the
Poles. than three hours, during which half the Turkish force was slain,
and a large number taken prisoners. A remnant of the original
force succeeded in escaping to Kaminiec, among whom was the Seraskier
Hussein.[49]
It is difficult to credit the statement of some historians, none of
Question of thewhom are contemporaries, that Sobieski put all the prisoners to
prisoners.
the sword.[50] Such an act would have been opposed alike to his
natural disposition and to his defensive policy. Plain facts are against it; for some
days later the commander at Kaminiec, delighted at the generous terms which he
granted to the garrison of the castle (November 13th,), released fifty prisoners
without ransom. Had such an enormity been committed, it must certainly have
reached his ears, and would have met with a prompt revenge.
Immediately after the victory, the Jesuit confessor of Sobieski
Joy of the erected an altar in the pavilion of the Seraskier, and the whole
Poles.
army, with tears of joy, attended a thanksgiving service. The
occasion was indeed affecting, especially to their commander. Ere long
Christendom was resounding with the praises of one who had obtained the
greatest victory over the infidel since the battle of Ascalon. Sobieski was most
anxious to follow up his success. Honour forbade him to desert the Moldavians
and Wallachians, who had come over to him at considerable risk; and he wished
to cut off from the Turks all chance of return. He put his cavalry in
Their advance motion towards the Danube with the hope of encountering Caplan
upon the
Danube. Pacha. But that general, on hearing of the disaster at Kotzim,
retreated in all haste, and took with him the Turkish garrisons on
the left bank of the Danube. Such was the panic in Turkey that the Sultan, who
had advanced to Silistria, hurried back to his capital. But the victorious advance
of the Poles was stopped, as they were entering Wallachia, by the news of the
death of their king.
On the night before the battle of Kotzim (November 10th),
Death of Michael breathed his last at Leopol. His death was caused by
Michael.
disease of the kidneys, but he had hastened his end by the
gluttonous voracity of his appetite, which passed all bounds. He is said to have
devoured in a few hours a thousand Chinese apples, presented to him by the
municipality of Dantzic. His last hours were embittered by the fruits of his
pusillanimous submission to the Turks. A few days before his death a Turkish
Aga[51] arrived, bearing the caphtan, or robe of vassalage, which the Sultan
sends to his tributaries. The king was too ill to receive him, and he had to depart
without executing his commission.
The incapacity of Michael deserves our pity, because the crown
His character. was thrust upon him against his will. But he was worse than
incapable. Envy and fear alternately gained the mastery over his despicable
nature. His evil genius pursued him to the end. Such was the general exultation
at the victory of Kotzim that there was no pretence of mourning for him; and his
body was conveyed to Warsaw, almost unnoticed, beneath the triumphal arches
erected in honour of his rival.
Three weeks elapsed after Michael’s death before the news of
Exultation in the Grand General’s victory arrived at Warsaw (December 4th),
Poland.
and in the interval the Poles had given up the army for lost. It is
somewhat surprising that in a nation so excitable the sudden revulsion of feeling
did not result at once in the proclamation of Sobieski. Madame de Sevigné,[52]
writing just after the news arrived in Paris (December 22nd), says that there no
one doubted that he would be elected. The official journals of France speak of
him as “worthy of the throne which he had saved.” But the Grand General himself
was aware what a stormy opposition his candidature would raise among the
Lithuanians. It was thus with unfeigned sorrow that he received the orders of the
primate-interrex to bring back his victorious troops. Everything remained to be
done towards reaping the benefits of his glorious success. The Turks were still in
Kaminiec; Moldavia and Wallachia were yet to be freed; and the Cossacks who
had sent in their submission had to be confirmed in their allegiance. He did all he
could. Though his men deserted him daily by hundreds for the
Return of the more profitable field of election, he left a garrison in Kotzim, and
Polish army.
detached 8,000 men for the defence of his two allies. Then, with a
heavy heart, he retraced his steps to Leopol. He was here met by deputies from
the most distant palatinates, who showered upon him their congratulations; but
he showed no disposition to proceed to Warsaw. He knew too well the activity of
his enemies in the Diet, and he was quite content that it should appear that he
had no personal pretensions.[53]
While her late husband was still lying in state the queen had
Projects of the resumed her favourite project of retaining the crown by a
queen.
marriage with Charles of Lorraine. That prince left the army of the
Rhine and appeared upon the frontiers; and the emperor massed troops for his
support on the borders of Little Poland. Sixteen[54] other
Candidates.
candidates appeared in the field, but many of these were
Protestant princes, whose chances were small; and the contest seemed to lie
between Lorraine and the young Duke of Neuberg, the son of his old antagonist.
The latter, though a German prince, was supported by Louis XIV. as the heir of
the Elector Palatine, and therefore an important ally. No artifice
Preparations for was spared by the queen’s party to prevent the proposal of
the election.
Sobieski. The Pazes brought forward a measure in the Diet for
the exclusion of a Piast on account of the misfortunes of the late reign; and when
this was unfavourably received, they insisted that the new king must be
unmarried.[55] The Diet refused to sanction any measures of exclusion, and
wrote to press for Sobieski’s presence. But the hero was now at Zolkiew
attending his wife in a dangerous illness, upon the origin of which various
rumours were afloat. His enemies averred that he had poisoned her himself to
secure the queen’s hand; his friends hinted that the queen had done so to be
sure of the crown at all hazards. These speculations were set at rest by the
recovery of Madame Sobieska; but her husband still delayed to appear in public.
He wrote, however, to the Diet, strongly urging that the threatening attitude of the
Turks rendered any delay dangerous; and it was decided on this advice that the
election should not be made by the whole Pospolite, but by a representative Diet.
But the regulation was practically ineffective; for the Diet being held in the open
air, the nobles attended as usual to watch the conduct of their deputies.
The field of Wola, close to Warsaw, was the scene of this
The field of unique spectacle. On the day when the Diet of election met (April
election.
20) all the orders of the state attended a grand service at the
cathedral, and then set out on horseback for the field. In the midst of the plain
was pitched the “szopa,” or grand pavilion of the Senate, surrounded by a ditch
to keep off intruders, and carefully closed to the public. Not far off, under the
open sky, sat the “kolo” or circle of deputies from the palatinates. Round it were
ranged 100,000 of the nobility, jealously watching each turn of their deliberations.
Every human passion found vent in this motley assemblage. Riots were frequent,
and seldom ended without effusion of blood. Each noble was attended by as
many valets as he could muster, who were generally a worse element of disorder
than their lords. To these must be added a crowd of mercenaries from
neighbouring nations, all eagerly intriguing for their national candidate. Long
tables were set up as the head-quarters of each faction, and at these was heard
an unceasing babel of noisy tongues. In the vacant spaces of the arena jousts
were frequent, for which each palatinate brought out a splendid cavalcade. This
was the occasion when all gratified the national craving for display. Many a poor
noble would readily sell his vote, perhaps to more than one candidate, for the
pleasure of donning a brilliant attire. Costly furs adorned their persons, and were
almost hidden beneath a profusion of jewels. The same reckless display of the
precious metals was seen in their accoutrements. Nor were the bishops outdone
by the cavaliers. Green, broad-brimmed hats, with yellow or red pantaloons, were
the common ornaments of the soldiers of the Church. Every kind of merchandise
was represented. The Jews, who were ordinarily interdicted from appearing in
Warsaw, made the most of the short period when the restriction was removed.
The plain around the “szopa” was dotted with an immense multitude of tents,
most of them devoted to buying and selling, but all decorated in the most
gorgeous style. Several pavilions of superb workmanship and oriental
magnificence, containing a large suite of luxurious chambers, attracted special
attention. They were the quarters of the Seraskier Hussein—transported entire
from the camp at Kotzim—and were now surmounted by the shield of Sobieski.
Nothing more was wanting to kindle the liveliest enthusiasm for
Absence of the absent general. His name was in every mouth, and his non-
Sobieski.
appearance caused much surprise. The “kolo” elected as their
marshal the Lithuanian Sapieha, a personal friend of the Grand General; and
when Michael Paz pushed his hatred so far as to revive his proposal for the
exclusion of a Piast (April 15), the attempt was so invidious that a party began to
form in Sobieski’s favour, though their designs were at first studiously concealed.
On the 2nd of May it was announced that Sobieski was
His arrival. approaching Warsaw. His arrival on the plain created the most
unbounded enthusiasm; the Diet rose and went to meet him; and his progress for
miles resembled a triumph. Sixty-six banners—the spoil of Kotzim—were carried
before him, to be his present, as he said, to his future king; and behind him
marched a corps of captive janissaries, who were enrolled as his body-guard.
Like his countrymen, he did not disdain ostentation; for on the croup of his horse
hung a shield of gold, embossed with scenes from his great career. Nature had
gifted him with handsome features and a dignified mien.[56] Though stout, he was
tall and erect; and his full flashing eye marked him at once as a man of
frankness, bravery, and powers of observation. Yet along with his military air his
face wore a sweetness of expression, which was indescribably attractive. Few of
the Pules could have witnessed his entry without feeling that he was the fittest
person to be their king.
Two days after (May 4) the Senate forsook the “szopa” and
He proposes took their seat in the “kolo;” and Sobieski, rising in his place,
the Prince of
Condé. proposed the Prince of Condé, whose military qualities, he said,
made him the proper choice of a nation which would have to
struggle for its existence. This unexpected event caused an immense
commotion. The vast multitude was split into the old factions of France and
Austria, and for days it seemed as if there was no solution but civil war. At length
(May 19) Sobieski consented to withdraw the name of Condé if the queen would
consent to marry the Duke of Neuberg. Hoping against hope for the success of
her party, Eleanor rejected this offer with disdain; and the Lithuanians, who were
encamped on the other side of the Vistula, assumed a menacing attitude towards
the Polish Pospolite. At this crisis the Bishop of Cracow, who was discharging the
functions of interrex,[57] gave orders for the singing of the canticles with which
the debates were accustomed to close. The familiar chant and its associations
produced a dead calm in the tempestuous assembly, and at its conclusion the
prelate ordered each palatinate to range itself round the banner of its palatine.
While his orders were being obeyed, Jablonowski, palatine of
Jablonowski Red Russia, the home of Sobieski, took advantage of the silence
proposes
Sobieski. to address all those within hearing. He represented Lorraine as
too devoted to the empire, Neuberg as too young, Condé as too
old, to command their armies with vigour. The times, he said, required a prince
who was well acquainted alike with them and with their military system. He was
here interrupted with loud shouts of “A Piast!” a sound which soon collected
round the speaker all the surging masses of the Pospolite. The palatine
continued, “Among ourselves is a man whose sacrifices for his country have
caused him to be everywhere considered the first of the sons of Poland. In
placing him at our head we shall do no more than consecrate his own glory;
fortunate to be able to honour by one title the more the remainder of a life, of
which every day has been dedicated to the republic. We know that such a king
will maintain our nation in the rank which it occupies in the world. Such a man as
he is will never make himself a vassal of the infidel. Poles, if we are deliberating
here in peace on the election of a king, if the most illustrious dynasties are
courting our suffrages, if our liberty remains secure, if even we have a country
left to us, to whom do we owe it? Remember the marvels of Slobodyszcza, of
Podhaic, of Kalusz, above all, of Kotzim, and take for your king John
Sobieski!”[58]
A tempest of applause followed this speech, and as it subsided the voice of
one of the castellans was heard calling upon the Poles to elect that man whom
the Turks would be most anxious to exclude. Then from the midst of the host
rose loud shouts of “Long live King John Sobieski!” and thirteen palatinates at
once took up the cry. The regular soldiers pressed forward towards the szopa,
exclaiming, “We will all perish together, or have for our king John Sobieski!” It
was already late in the evening, but the Polish nobility crowded round the
interrex, and besought him to take the votes. One voice alone
He postpones was raised against the proposition; it was that of Sobieski. He
the voting.
firmly declared that he could not accept the crown if it was offered
at the fall of night, and in a manner so sudden that no one could have time to
recollect himself. “If,” said he, “there is no other protest against the election being
made this night, I shall oppose my veto.” This disinterested advice was
unwillingly followed, and Sobieski left the plain to encounter the reproaches of his
wife.
Several writers—principally the later Polish historians, who treat him with
marked disfavour—endeavour to detect in his conduct throughout the
proceedings the signs of crafty intrigue. Yet by this last step he
And shows his allowed his enemies time to combine against him, and gave the
fair dealing.
queen’s party a fair opportunity of reviving their scattered
energies. But such generosity is often the best policy. The succeeding night and
day (May 20th) were spent in a general effort to secure unanimity; and the riches
and influence of his brother-in-law, Radziwill, were of much service to Sobieski in
the Lithuanian camp. But his own popularity was still more effectual. It had ever
been the privilege of the Grand General of Poland to quarter his army where he
pleased, and pay nothing for their maintenance. Bribes had formerly been freely
taken from those districts that desired exemption,[59] but Sobieski, unwilling to
exercise such tyranny, had always quartered his army on the frontiers. This was
now remembered with gratitude. His promises to the republic also
His offers to the became the topic of admiring conversation. He engaged to pay
republic.
the pension to the queen dowager, to redeem the crown jewels,
to found a military school for the young nobility, to build two fortresses wherever
the Diet should appoint, and to furnish the regular army with six months’ pay.
Early in the day two of the family of Paz came to register their opposition with the
interrex, but before night fell they had been persuaded to forego it. The next
morning Sobieski was proclaimed king amid the acclamations of
Proclamation of both Principalities, and took the name of John III. The same day a
Sobieski.
vast crowd attended him to the cathedral of St. John to return
thanks for his election.
Europe in general was less astonished at his elevation than
Opinion of Poland. At Constantinople and at Vienna alone the news was
Europe.
received with disfavour. Köprili saw less chance of recovering his
conquests; and the emperor was bitterly mortified to see upon the throne one
who had always belonged to the faction of France. Poland was daily becoming of
greater importance in the struggle between Louis and Leopold. When the
republic was bleeding from the shocks of her barbarous neighbours, and from a
succession of internal troubles, it mattered little to these great potentates who
filled the throne; but now that she had proved herself strong enough to withstand
the dreaded Turk, and wise enough to offer the crown to her victorious general,
she was looked upon with a respect to which she had hitherto been a stranger.
This was fully appreciated at the Papal Court. Clement X., besides his
benediction, sent assurances of friendship to the new king; and Oliva, the
general of the Jesuits, wrote his joyful congratulations to “the pillar of the republic
and the avenger of Christendom.” It is difficult to discover how far the court of
France had a hand in his election. Its ambassador, Forbin-Janson, bishop of
Marseilles, arrived somewhat late (May 8th), and certainly brought instructions to
support the Duke of Neuberg. But he probably discovered ere long which way the
tide was setting, and, adapting himself to circumstances with a Frenchman’s
ready wit, he caused it to be supposed that he had used his influence in favour of
Sobieski. Louis XIV. followed the same course; and in an official note of the same
summer claimed this election as one more instance of the universal triumph of
his policy.
The machinations of the enemies of Sobieski did not cease
Schemes of the with the withdrawal of their veto. Their first move was to give
king’s enemies.
notice of a law which should oblige him to divorce his wife and
marry the queen dowager. But on this point the king was firm. “I have not yet
finally promised,” said he, “to accept the royal functions. If this is the price of your
sceptre, you need not offer it.” The proposal was soon dropped; and Eleanor,
after receiving a visit from the king, retired to Thorn, whence she still exercised a
baneful influence upon the course of affairs. Four years later (1678) she gave her
hand to her old suitor, the Prince of Lorraine.
Whilst the Diet was drawing up the pacta conventa, Sobieski discovered from
an examination of his revenues that he could not fulfil his promise of paying the
army for six months. Without delay he frankly owned his inability; and his
opponents made this a pretext for inserting in the contract new restrictions on the
military authority of the king. They also wished to bind him to an eternal alliance
with the court of Vienna. It was soon known that the king would not yield to these
terms; and several stormy scenes took place in the Diet. At length the obnoxious
articles were struck out; and on the 5th June the king received the instrument of
his election from the hands of the interrex.
There now remained only the ceremony of coronation—which was a necessary
prelude to the exercise of the royal functions. But the steady
Danger from advance of the Turks grew daily more disquieting. Caplan Pacha
the Turks.
had rallied the remnants of the defeated force, and the Sultan
was already marching with a great army through Bulgaria. John saw that the
delay would be dangerous, and had the courage to disappoint the queen[60] and
the whole court by deferring the ceremony. He told the Senate that at such a time
a helmet became his forehead better than a diadem. “I know well,” said he, “that I
have been elected, not to represent the republic, but to fight for her. I will first fulfil
my mission.” Touched by his magnanimity, the Diet resolved to place in his hands
at once all the powers of a king.
Meantime the Turks, accompanied by the Tartars, had
They invade the appeared in great force before the camp at Kotzim. The Polish
Ukraine.
commander, terrified at their numbers, soon surrendered, and the
whole garrison was put to the sword. But instead of advancing into the heart of
Poland, Köprili turned to the right into the Ukraine, where the Muscovites, who
also laid claim to that territory, now lined the Borysthenes with 100,000 men.
Hearing that he was occupied in besieging small places in the Ukraine, John
promised to render a good account of him before the close of the campaign. He
kept his word. While the Turks drove the Muscovites beyond the
Campaign of river, he suddenly appeared in Podolia and besieged Bar. The
1674.
Sultan, who was distracted by news of intrigues at his capital and
the advance of the Sophy upon Babylon, suddenly broke up his camp, and made
for Silistria. The Tartars disappeared at the sound of “the Polish hurricane,” as
they called Sobieski; and John was left to deal with the hapless country which
had but just suffered from the Ottoman invasion. He could see no
John winters in mode of protecting its peasants from the yoke of the nobility but
the Ukraine.
to place his army in winter quarters in the neighbourhood, and to
teach the cavalry by his own example what clemency and what self-sacrifice they
ought to show towards a subject people. Resistance was only to be expected; for
his haughty hussars had never before passed a winter away from their estates.
But when they saw their king take up his abode in the miserable town of Braclaw,
where the scarcity of forage increased the hardships of the season, the Polish
cavalry submitted without a murmur.
 Not so, however, did the Lithuanians. The king had assigned to Paz the town
of Bar, the most comfortable post on the frontiers. Yet that general
The Lithuanians did not approve of the innovation, and taking the law into his own
desert him. hands marched home with his army. This defection was a great
blow to the king. He had begun to invest Kaminiec, and had
opened negotiations for an alliance with Muscovy. He now saw himself obliged to
narrow his plans, and to confine himself to the defensive. The desertion of Paz
aroused the strongest indignation in Poland, and he was forced to ask the king’s
pardon; but he could not now repair the mischief. His disbanded troops were
amusing themselves with pillaging their own country,[61] and there was no
chance at present of rallying them round their standards.
The winter passed without any important success; and early in
Campaign of April another large Turkish army, commanded by Ibrahim Pacha,
1675.
[62] nicknamed “Schischman” from his enormous bulk, advanced
into Volhynia. John hastily quitted the Ukraine and disposed his small forces for
the defence of Russia in a vast arc, of which Leopol was the centre. So
completely was he outnumbered that his only chance of success seemed to lie in
procuring allies. He continued to treat with the Czar, and received at Leopol with
ostentatious pomp an ambassador from the Sophy of Persia; but he could hope
little from the latter, except the chance of terrifying the Sultan by a supposed
coalition with his Asiatic enemy.
Meanwhile Ibrahim had copied the fault of the preceding year
Lethargy of theby wasting time in small sieges, and it was not till he received a
Poles.
threatening message from Köprili that he began to advance upon
the Polish force covering Leopol, which hardly amounted to 15,000 men. No
exertions on the part of the king could awaken Poland to a sense of its danger.
Servitude had numbed the senses of the peasants, and the nobles were wearied
with the length of the war. Ibrahim seemed unwilling to trust his fortune against
that of Sobieski. Sitting down before Trembowla, a strong fortress in Podolia, he
sent on the Tartar Noureddin with 40,000 men “to bring the king before him dead
or alive.”
It was late in August when this detachment[63]—the flower of
Battle of
Leopol. the Turkish army—arrived at Leopol, and began to burn the
suburbs. The Poles besought the king to retire, and not risk his
life in so deadly a combat. “You would despise me,” said he, “if I were to follow
your advice.” The ground in the vicinity was undulating and covered with
vineyards, and John carefully made his dispositions in order to conceal from the
enemy the smallness of his force. He planted several hills, which he could not
occupy, with the spare lances of his hussars, and concealed squadrons in the
valleys near the point of attack. Then, on the 24th of August, amidst a storm of
snow and hail which beat in the faces of the enemy, he suddenly charged the
infidels at the head of 5,000 cavalry, repeating thrice the name of Jesus. The
impetuous bravery of the Poles spread terror in the Turkish ranks, and before
nightfall the whole force, though at least eight times the number of their
assailants, had fled in disorder. The storm was so unusual for the time of year
that contemporary memoirs speak of it as miraculous; and it appears that this
battle, more than any other, contributed to cause the superstitious fear with which
the Turkish troops subsequently regarded John Sobieski.
Ibrahim was dismayed at the king’s success. He had captured
Siege of the position of Podhaic, but he could not reduce the garrison of
Trembowla.
Trembowla, commanded by Chrasonowski, a man of determined
courage. He now redoubled his assault upon that place, which must have fallen
but for the arrival of John with the Polish army. The king posted his troops to
advantage and prepared for the attack; but during the night (Oct. 6th) Ibrahim
intercepted a letter to the besieged, which informed him that the king in person
was at the head of the Poles. He at once raised the siege, and
Retreat of the without striking a blow retreated precipitately to Kaminiec, and
Turks.
thence across the Danube. John would have pursued him beyond
the outskirts of Podolia, but the Polish vanguard, dreading a winter’s campaign in
the enemy’s country, set fire to the bridges, and compelled their king to suspend
his march.
The whole country clamoured for his return, and the Diet was
Return of the impatient to return thanks to its deliverer. The Vice-chancellor
king.
declared in the Senate that the king moved like a tortoise towards
the throne, but like an eagle towards the enemies of the republic. He was now
ready to gratify the general wish, and returning to Zolkiew received a number of
foreign ambassadors sent to congratulate him upon his election,—among them
Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester,[64] whom Dr. South was attending as
domestic chaplain. The French ambassador solicited John’s alliance against
Brandenburg and the empire, and held out hopes of persuading the Turks to
make peace. But the king deferred all fresh engagements for the present; his
grand aim in life was to save Poland from the Ottoman grasp.
Cracow was, as usual, the scene of the coronation, which was fixed for the 2nd
of February (1676). Two days earlier, according to the Polish
Burial of the two custom, John followed to the grave the body of Michael, and the
last kings.
interest of the ceremony was deepened on this occasion by the
obsequies of Casimir. The ex-king had died three years before, of grief, it was
said, at the fall of Kaminiec.[65] The reigns of the two deceased kings, so fruitful
in misfortunes to Poland, comprised the whole of Sobieski’s wonderful career,
and it was fitting that their royal mourner should be he to whose prowess they
were chiefly indebted for retaining the crown. The coronation took
Coronation. place amid general rejoicings, broken only by a few murmurs
when the crown was set upon the queen’s head. It was not long before she
showed her unfitness to wear it.
 Two days later (February 4th) the Diet met, and was
Diet of 1676. conspicuous for its loyal enthusiasm. The king was entreated not
to lay down the office of Grand General, but he wisely refused a privilege so
invidious, and conferred the post upon his old enemy, Demetrius Wiesnowiesçki.
He displayed the same generous spirit in his other appointments, offering the
primacy to Olzowski, the favourite of Eleanor, and the Grand Marshalate to
Lubomirski, son of his old rival. The brave Jablonowski was rewarded with the
post of Second General. His elevation caused some trouble. The Diet proposed
to make these dignities triennial, which, in the present reign at least, would have
been a salutary enhancement of the royal power; but the queen, out of gratitude
to Jablonowski, worked hard in secret to defeat the proposal. The king, though
he favoured it at heart, appeared neutral; and the project fell through.
John availed himself of the favourable temper of the Diet to take exceptional
measures for the national defence. He proposed a capitation subsidy upon all
alike, clergy as well as laity, and strongly urged the necessity of forming a
permanent infantry. Hitherto this branch of the service had been fixed at one-third
of the regular army (16,000), but it had never reached this standard, and being
composed only of the peasants and poorer nobles, commanded by foreign
officers, its equipment was disgracefully inefficient.[66] The Diet voted that the
army should be raised to 73,000 men, thus augmenting it by 25,000,[67] and that
of these 35,000 should be infantry. No king had ever obtained such concessions
from the nobility, but they were not granted without a violent opposition. The old
expedient was tried of drawing out the Diet, but John defeated it by submitting to
a continuous sitting, and presiding upon the throne for forty consecutive hours.
He was able to announce that the Great Elector had promised him succours, and
that he hoped for an alliance with Muscovy. The Diet did not rise before paying
him the unusual compliment of a decree that all the starosties which he had held
should remain hereditary in his family.[68]
Unfortunately their good resolutions were not carried into effect.
The king fails to
Although the Dietines ratified their proceedings, it was beyond the
levy troops.
king’s power to overcome the inertness and lethargy of the
nobility. The patriotic spirit died out at once when the magic of his personal
influence was withdrawn. Seizing upon a rumour which was industriously raised
by Austria, that the king was treating in secret with the Turks and would use the
money for his own purposes, they refused to pay the subsidy, and threw every
obstacle in his way. John hastily assembled at Leopol those troops which had not
been disbanded; but, although their number is variously stated, some even
placing it as low as 10,000, it probably did not amount to one-half of the force
that the Diet had decreed.
Meanwhile, Köprili had not been idle. He assembled an army of
Armament of 100,000 Turks, to be accompanied by a vast host of Tartars. But
the Turks.
his aim was more pacific than in the former campaigns. He was
beset by the proffered mediation of the European powers, especially of Louis
XIV., who wished to evade his promise of sending armed assistance to Poland.
Moreover, the condition of Asiatic Turkey distracted his attention; his allies, the
Cossacks and the Tartars, inspired him with distrust; and he felt that his fortune
was outshone by the star of John Sobieski. The name of the Polish hero was
such a terror in the Ottoman ranks that threats alone could induce many of the
officers to serve against him. Köprili looked out anxiously for a competent
general. He chose Ibrahim, Pacha of Damascus, called “Shaitan” (Satan), from
his combined bravery and cunning, and gave him instructions to procure an
honourable peace.
Ibrahim secretly hoped to do more than this, for he was
Invasion of confident that he could drive the king to extremities. He pushed
Galicia.
on at once into Galicia and crossed the Dniester, expecting that
John would attack him; but finding that the king lay inactive at Zurawno, a small
town on the left bank, he advanced against him without delay. John called in his
squadrons of horse, which had been harassing the Tartars, and prepared to
improve his position. It had been chosen with admirable judgment. He lay with
the Dniester and the mountains behind it covering his rear, while his left rested
on the town of Zurawno, and his right was protected by woods and marshes. In
front of his lines ran a rapid torrent, called the Swiczza, which was easily
fordable, and offered facilities for the construction of entrenchments. On this task
John employed his whole army, and collected all the provisions within reach.
When the seraskier appeared on the heights in his front, he left his lines and
offered him battle (September 25th); but this was declined, for all the Turkish
troops had not yet come up. Ibrahim, when he had assembled
Siege of them, formed them into a vast arc, including the town of Zurawno,
Zurawno.
the Polish army, and the wood on its right, with each of his wings
resting on the river. He then commenced a regular siege. His artillery was
splendidly handled; and his miners rapidly approached the Polish entrenchments.
John at once employed counter-mines, but the experience of the Turks in Candia
gave them a vast superiority. The king was anxious to bring on a general action,
and in a skirmish on the 29th of September the Poles had the advantage, but
they lost heavily. John’s situation was becoming desperate; the Tartars who
commanded the river prevented the arrival of provisions by that route; and the
Turkish artillery made frightful havoc in his ranks.
The liveliest alarm prevailed in Poland. The Senate called out
Proposals of the Pospolite and placed Prince Radziwill at its head; but the
peace.
assembling of such a body was necessarily slow. Meantime
another engagement took place at Zurawno (October 8th), in which 2,000 Turks
were slain; but John failed to break through the enemy’s lines, and was once
nearly surrounded and cut off from his men by a body of janissaries. When
however the siege had lasted nearly twenty days, the Tartan khan, whose
dominion was menaced by the Muscovites,[69] pressed Ibrahim to conclude a