| Curveball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game Revised Edition Contributor(s): Albert, Jim (Author), Bennett, Jay (Author) |
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ISBN: 038700193X ISBN-13: 9780387001937 Publisher: Copernicus Books OUR PRICE: $49.49 Product Type: Paperback Published: April 2003 Annotation: .,." a smart and energetic collection of essays on baseball statistics. Curve Ball doesn't play misty-eyed homage to baseball's traditions and conventional wisdoms.... This is great stuff.... Curve Ball makes clear how pleasurable [stats] can be, and arguably how important, to view the great American game with real precision." -- The Wall Street Journal "Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Must own!" -- Baseballnotebook.com "In [Curve Ball] Albert & Bennett explain the game in ways the conventional press - even titans such as Bill James - cannot." -- Baseball America "[The book] illustrates how statistical reasoning can be useful in teasing out the role of chance from performance in baseball to better assess ability.... Curve Ball represents another advance in the genre of baseball and statistics books." -- Journal of the American Statistical Association There is a fascination among baseball fans and the media to collect data on every imaginable event during a baseball game and to use these data to try to understand characteristics of the game. But patterns in baseball data are difficult to detect due to the inherent chance variation that is present. This book addresses a number of questions that are of interest to many baseball fans - including how to rate players, predict the outcome of a game or the attainment of an attainment, make sense of situational data, and decide the most valuable players in the World Series. Curve Ball is directed to a general audience and does not assume that the reader has any prior background in probability or statistics, although knowledge of high school algebra will be helpful. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Sports & Recreation | Baseball - Statistics |
| Dewey: 796.357 |
| LCCN: 2003043436 |
| Physical Information: 1.16" H x 6.38" W x 9.18" (1.59 lbs) 410 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In its formative years, from the 1970s through the 1990s, sabermetrics was p- marily an amateur undertaking. Publications were aimed at a relatively small audience of baseball fans. To be sure, this ever-growing group of aficionados brought a lot of sophistication to baseball analysis, and were constantly looking for statistical insights beyond the listings of the top ten batters found in popular newspapers and magazines. But their influence on the baseball profession was very limited. A few consultants like Craig Wright developed temporary relati- ships with various teams, but none were able to stay long enough to create a p- manent sabermetrician staff position. (See Rob Neyer's November 11, 2002, arti- 1 cle on ESPN. com. ) All of this changed, however, in 2002 with the hiring of Bill James by the Boston Red Sox. With that move, we have seen the admittance of the foremost proponent of sabermetrics into the top echelon of professional ba- ball management. The art and science of careful statistical analysis, it now seems, had made it into the big leagues. Since the publication of the first edition of Curve Ball in 2001, we have been overwhelmed by the positive responses from readers and critics. We're pleased with the reception, of course, but we don't want to rest on our laurels. Like a pitcher refining his repertoire, we've revised, expanded, and updated the book for its publication in this paperback edition. Several readers and critics took us 1 http: //espn. go. com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1456664. |