How This Baseball Writer Prophesied Donald Trump’s Rise to Power 15 Years Ago

Fifteen years ago, famed baseball writer Bill James used math to talk about how ludicrous it was that Rafael Pamerio won the sport’s prized Gold Glove.  

So statistically rare, he said, it would be like Donald Trump winning the presidency.  

“A voting structure like this is an open invitation to an eccentric outcome. If the United States were to use a system like this to elect the president, the absolutely certain result would be that, within a few elections, someone like David Duke, Donald Trump, or Warren Beatty would be elected president. If you can win an election with 15 percent of the vote, sooner or later somebody will. An unconstrained plurality vote gives an opening to someone or something who has a strong appeal to a limited number of people,” he said in 2001, according to NBC Sports.  

Fifteen years ago, Trump was contemplating the eventual sale of the Empire State Building and finishing construction on the Trump World Tower. 

Even one year ago, Trump had yet to announce his presidential bid. Now, James’ joking mathematics eerily add up as Trump is the last Republican presidential candidate standing. 

Though James technically called in back in 2001, the writer, as recently as February, said he didn’t think Trump had much of a chance.  

“When you divide the public in two then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the ‘lead’ under those circumstances,” James said on his website. 

Yet this week, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Trump is the presumptive nominee. 

“I don’t think anyone predicted what happened,” Priebus said. “So, look, we’re here.  We’re going to get behind the presumptive nominee. I stated the obvious in the tweet. Obviously, you still have to get to 1,237 delegates.”