Magna Carta downgraded by SABR based on Historic Timelessness Factor

NEW YORK CITY, NY — The Magna Carta is scheduled to be auctioned off this week for a historic price, potentially fetching $20-$30 million. However – unfortunately for the Perot Foundation, which is auctioning off the ancient document – the value of the Magna Carta has been downgraded by the Society for American Baseball Research.

“We are citing the Historical Timelessness Factor as our reason for downgrading the Magna Carta,” stated Bill James, speaking on behalf of SABR. “The HTF is a new statistic that measures the value of a work over time. Documents like Romeo and Juliet, the Bible, and the Beatles’ White Album – these works all have a very high HTF. In almost every case, the buzz on these works is as strong – or maybe stronger – than the day they first became public. Can the same be said about the Magna Carta? Absolutely not.”

The Magna Carta, authored in 1215, was one of the first documents to grant the citizens of England rights in the face of the king, and many believe that it laid the groundwork for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

James said that he didn’t feel the downgrading would totally destroy the value of the document at the auction.

“The Magna Carta has a lot of other qualities that make it attractive,” James said. “It’s Significance Over Replace Charter (SORC) is quite high. And the fact that it’s a precursor to the Constitution certainly will help some people get over its deficiencies. In many ways, it’s the A-Rod of historical documents. Looks great on paper, but where’s the beef?”

And it is there, James said, where historians must take the Magna Carta with a grain of salt.

“There is no doubt that this is an important document,” James said. “Without the Magna Carta we probably never would have had the Declaration of Independence. But how many people do you know who can quote from the Magna Carta? Exactly.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!