title: Removing levels from data frame read from CSV file - R
body: <p>I tried loading the baseball statistics from <a href="http://baseballguru.com/MLB2011.xls" rel="noreferrer">this</a> link. When I read it from the file using</p>
  
  <pre><code>data &lt;- read.csv("MLB2011.csv")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>it seems to be reading all fields as factor values. I tried dropping those factor values by doing:</p>
  
  <pre><code>read.csv("MLB2011.xls", as.is= FALSE)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>.. but it looks like the values are still being read as factors. What can I do to have them loaded as simple character values and not factors?</p>