The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance Confounds the Statistical Study of Baseball

Hirsch Alan Hirsch Sheldon

ISBN 10: 0786462884 / ISBN 13: 9780786462889

Published by McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2011

About this Item

PRINT ON DEMAND pp. 212.

Seller Inventory # 182380590

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance Confounds the Statistical Study of Baseball
• Publisher: McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786462884
• ISBN 13: 9780786462889
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Sabermetrics, the search for objective knowledge about baseball through statistical analysis, has taken over the national pastime. The authors argue that this approach began as a useful corrective but has come to harm baseball. The book demonstrates that the so-called moneyball approach, based on sabermetrics, offers only limited guidance for assembling a team, managing games, and evaluating player performance. Equally important, the obsession with statistics and vision of the game as wholly predictable obscure baseball's spectacular improvisational quality. It is the game's unquantifiable and relentless capacity to surprise--the source of wonder so central to its greatest stories and personalities--that informs any real appreciation of baseball.

About the Authors

Sheldon Hirsch's dreams of the major leagues died after a mediocre season as a high school junior. He is a nephrologist living outside of Chicago, and has published extensively in medical journals.

Alan Hirsch, chair of the Justice and Law Studies program at Williams College, has written numerous books and been published in The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Newsday and Village Voice, among many others. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.