Review by Choice Review
Led by baseball historian/statistician Bill James and his disciples, and fueled by Michael Lewis's Moneyball (CH, Apr'04, 41-4733), the world of quantitative analysis of sports--on-field strategies, personnel decisions, longitudinal and contemporary comparisons of players--has mushroomed in recent years, especially in baseball. Newspaper sports columns, articles in serious academic journals, and popular books now feed sports-data junkies far better than the sports-talk radio programs do. The present title, a compilation of almost 30 stand-alone chapters, is the latest, and one of the best, of these products for the sports enthusiast. It is sure to stimulate conversations in the stands, create arguments around water coolers, and perhaps settle a few bar bets. Is Barry Bonds better than Babe Ruth? How best to juggle pitchers--starters and relievers--and how much pitching is actually necessary? How does one really measure ERA, determine Gold Glove recipients, factor in the effect of Coors Field (in mile-high Denver) or steroids on performance statistics? How valuable are some owners and managers? What are the economics behind player salaries and ticket prices, payroll caps, the value of a new ball park to a city? These are but a few of the controversial questions that Click et al. tackle in this book, which is a home run for baseball enthusiasts and sabermetrician wannabes. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels. A. R. Sanderson University of Chicago
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Who deserves recognition as the best baseball player of all time--Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth? The stuff of endless debates among baseball fans, such questions come into sharp focus when the experts of Baseball Prospectus0 start parsing their trove of statistics. Looking, for instance, at the Bonds-versus-Ruth issue, the BP 0 statisticians systematically adjust the two stars' numbers to reflect changes in parks, in level of competition, and in training technology as they establish that although Ruth still holds the overall edge, Bonds could overtake him with a couple more good seasons. But these baseball mavens look beyond the performance of individual players, as they examine entire teams (the '04 Red Sox and '01 Diamondbacks, for instance) and even whole epochs (the golden era of 1949--57). BP 0 numbers help readers see the world beyond the diamond as well, clarifying the economic pressures that push marginal players to use steroids and are increasingly pushing working-class fans right out of the stadiums their taxes are subsidizing. A valuable reference for baseball fans and cultural critics alike. --Bryce Christensen Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Jim Bouton's classic Ball Four includes a hilarious account of an argument between two players, culminating with "Why doesn't Bouton do some research...and come back with some figures for us?" The quintessential truth is that all baseball arguments can be resolved, either with information based on rigorous and painstaking research consonant with the scientific method (i.e., the Baseball Prospectus) or by simplistic, even simple-minded beliefs and prejudices. The experts at Baseball Prospectus have produced this book to show how to analyze numbers in baseball; they provide the definite answer to 29 baseball controversies in the process, e.g., Bonds vs. the Babe, the notion of career years as opposed to steroid-based surges in output, the value of A-Rod's contract per plate appearance, not to speak of irreverently pondering Ruth on the Atkins diet or Rickey Henderson with Pete Incaviglia's legs! This is essential reading for all baseball fans, even those who hated math in high school. Recommended for all general libraries.-Gilles Renaud, Ontario Court of Justice, Cornwall, Ont. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
