The numbers game: baseball's lifelong fascination with statistics
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Publisher:
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Pub. Date:
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language:
English
Description
Most baseball fans, players and even team executives assume that the National Pastime's infatuation with statistics is simply a byproduct of the information age, a phenomenon that blossomed only after the arrival of Bill James and computers in the 1980s. They couldn't be more wrong. In this unprecedented new book, Alan Schwarz - whom bestselling Moneyball author Michael Lewis calls "one of today's best baseball journalists" - provides the first-ever history of baseball statistics, showing how baseball and its numbers have been inseparable ever since the pastime's birth in 1845. He tells the history of this obsession through the lives of the people who felt it most: Henry Chadwick, the 19th-century writer who invented the first box score and harped endlessly about which statistics mattered and which did not; Allan Roth, Branch Rickey's right-hand numbers man with the late-1940s Brooklyn Dodgers; Earnshaw Cook, a scientist and Manhattan Project veteran who retired to pursue inventing the perfect baseball statistic; John Dewan, a former Strat-O-Matic maven who built STATS Inc. into a multimillion-dollar powerhouse for statistics over the Internet; and dozens more. Almost every baseball fan for 150 years has been drawn to the game by its statistics, whether through newspaper box scores, the backs of Topps baseball cards, The Baseball Encyclopedia, or fantasy leagues. Today's most ardent stat scientists, known as "sabermetricians," spend hundreds of hours coming up with new ways to capture the game in numbers, and engage in holy wars over which statistics are best. Some of these men - and women -- are even being hired by major league teams to bring an understanding of statistics to a sport that for so long shunned it. Taken together, Schwarz paints a history not just of baseball statistics, but of the soul of the sport itself. The Numbers Game will be an invaluable part of any fan's library and go down as one of the sport's classic books.
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Contributors:
ISBN:
9780312322229
9781466856080
9781466856080
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | b21aa69a-b962-d0c2-be29-167e33728e9f |
---|---|
Grouping Title | numbers game baseballs lifelong fascination with statistics |
Grouping Author | alan schwarz |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-04-16 02:36:15AM |
Last Indexed | 2024-04-26 22:23:22PM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Schwarz, Alan
author2-role
hoopla digital
author_display
Schwarz, Alan
display_description
Most baseball fans, players and even team executives assume that the National Pastime's infatuation with statistics is simply a byproduct of the information age, a phenomenon that blossomed only after the arrival of Bill James and computers in the 1980s. They couldn't be more wrong. In this unprecedented new book, Alan Schwarz - whom bestselling Moneyball author Michael Lewis calls "one of today's best baseball journalists" - provides the first-ever history of baseball statistics, showing how baseball and its numbers have been inseparable ever since the pastime's birth in 1845. He tells the history of this obsession through the lives of the people who felt it most: Henry Chadwick, the 19th-century writer who invented the first box score and harped endlessly about which statistics mattered and which did not; Allan Roth, Branch Rickey's right-hand numbers man with the late-1940s Brooklyn Dodgers; Earnshaw Cook, a scientist and Manhattan Project veteran who retired to pursue inventing the perfect baseball statistic; John Dewan, a former Strat-O-Matic maven who built STATS Inc. into a multimillion-dollar powerhouse for statistics over the Internet; and dozens more. Almost every baseball fan for 150 years has been drawn to the game by its statistics, whether through newspaper box scores, the backs of Topps baseball cards, The Baseball Encyclopedia, or fantasy leagues. Today's most ardent stat scientists, known as "sabermetricians," spend hundreds of hours coming up with new ways to capture the game in numbers, and engage in holy wars over which statistics are best. Some of these men - and women -- are even being hired by major league teams to bring an understanding of statistics to a sport that for so long shunned it. Taken together, Schwarz paints a history not just of baseball statistics, but of the soul of the sport itself. The Numbers Game will be an invaluable part of any fan's library and go down as one of the sport's classic books.
format_category_eh
Books
eBook
eBook
format_eh
Book
eBook
eBook
id
b21aa69a-b962-d0c2-be29-167e33728e9f
isbn
9780312322229
9781466856080
9781466856080
itype_eh
ADULT BOOK
last_indexed
2024-04-27T04:23:22.528Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
primary_isbn
9780312322229
publishDate
2004
2013
2013
publisher
St. Martin's Publishing Group
T. Dunne Books
T. Dunne Books
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Baseball -- United States -- Statistics -- History
Baseball statisticians -- United States -- History
Electronic books
Statistics
Baseball statisticians -- United States -- History
Electronic books
Statistics
title_display
The numbers game : baseball's lifelong fascination with statistics
title_full
The Numbers Game : Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics [electronic resource] / Alan Schwarz
The numbers game : baseball's lifelong fascination with statistics / Alan Schwarz
The numbers game : baseball's lifelong fascination with statistics / Alan Schwarz
title_short
The numbers game
title_sub
baseball's lifelong fascination with statistics
topic_facet
Baseball
Baseball statisticians
Electronic books
History
Baseball statisticians
Electronic books
History
Solr Details Tables
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record_details
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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ils:.b11498249 | Book | Books | 1st ed | English | T. Dunne Books | c2004 | xv, 270 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. |
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