One of the wonders of the transitional time in which we live is the willingness of journalists to treat the Internet as both a vast, autonomous intelligence, and as a public utility. If you read a lot of sports writing, you’ll inevitably come across a writer sourcing information to the Internet as such, a really curious habit that probably demands the attentions of a doctoral candidate in anthropology. Just think of what could be written if we applied this standard more broadly.

“Alex Rodriguez is the product of an alien crossbreeding program, according to the bar,” a report might read.

“David Wright’s opposite-field power can be attributed to his habit of snorting the powdery remnants of mummified Egyptian rulers, according to the library,” another might read.

This wretched practice should stop. The Internet is not an artificial intelligence program, but the product of the work of billions of people, very few of whom receive their due. Among them is Sean Forman. You may not know who he is, but you should send him money.

Forman runs Baseball-Reference.com, which has for years been the single most valuable baseball Web site anywhere. This isn’t because the information found on it is unique — little, if anything, on the site cannot be found elsewhere. Instead, its peculiar genius is all in the way it’s organized. Take David Wright. Punch his name into the site’s search engine and you pull up a clean, well-designed page with biographical and statistical information. Most of the statistics are plain, official statistics of the sort you can find anywhere. There are, though, sabermetrics statistics, postseason batting records, salaries, appearances in the league’s leader boards, and much more.

A few more clicks in the utterly simple and intuitive interface brings on a bigger flood of information, from records of every individual game he’s played in, complete with links to box scores and play-by-play accounts, to his records against individual pitchers, lists of every teammate he’s ever had, and how often he swings at 3–0 pitches (four out of 100, if you’re curious.) For subscribers to the site’s excellent and inexpensive Play Index service, a staggering array of data-slicing tools harnesses the power of even more information. How many integration-era third basemen have hit as well as Wright has through age 24, relative to the other players in their leagues? Two — Eddie Mathews and Dick Allen. It took less time for Forman’s system to provide this information than it did for me to think of the question.

As noteworthy as what the site can do is what it doesn’t do, and what it isn’t. It doesn’t rely on tacky, computer-assaulting video embedding or other high-technology gimmicks that are as liable as not to crash a computer, unlike the sites run by Major League Baseball and ESPN. It isn’t overwhelmed by horrible Flash advertisements. It never slows down, so far as I’ve noticed. Perhaps most important of all, it’s independent. It’s run by one guy who answers his e-mail and has no interest — so far as I’m aware — in selling your name to direct marketers or using his site as a platform from which to commit acts that can only be described in impenetrable business jargon. It’s just a site for information on baseball that works, not a synergistic experiment in branded interfaces and content delivery, unlike its above-named competitors.

Consider this, though. According to an interview Forman gave to the Hardball Times, the site draws 500,000 unique page views a day, and yet has attracted just 600 subscribers. Together with other means of income from advertising and individual page sponsorships, that’s enough to keep Forman working on the site full-time, and yet it seems preposterously small. Surely there are more than 600 working baseball writers who rely on the site in the course of their daily work. They ought to pay up — and so should hardcore baseball fans.

I’m not shaking the tin cup on someone else’s behalf here. The product provided for the money would be worth five times what it costs, which is why people should buy it. Also relevant, though, is this: In a world where we are overwhelmed by information, and in which we increasingly feel that this information is being hoarded and manipulated by large, impersonal forces, why are we so willing to take for granted the efforts of independent actors? I’d guess that some astonishingly large percentage of the people reading this — probably closing in on 100% — have used Forman’s site. How many have thought about how and why it works so well, or considered that it doesn’t simply spring forth from the ether to answer questions about everyone from Esix Snead to Smead Jolley? I don’t know, but I do know that as we move on from a world where people feel comfortable to attributing knowledge to “the Internet,” we’ll be best off supporting those who support us in our work and leisure. In its area, Baseball-Reference.comdoes that as well as any site concerning anything. It’s something worth acknowledging.

tmarchman@nysun.com