When I volunteered to review “Behind the Seams: The Stat Story”—an MLB Network special on statistics and their place in the game that airs tonight at 10 p.m. EST—I wasn’t sure what to expect. When a big-name mainstream entity tries to talk about stats, it’s often overly simplistic, incorrect, or simply misses the point; ESPN’s stat segments on “Baseball Tonight” are often an example of this. And when I heard Bob Costas was hosting—remember, this is the same guy who, along with Buzz Bissinger, essentially ambushed Deadspin’s Will Leitch just a few years back on Costas Now—I really wasn’t sure what to expect.

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