Scouting and scoring How we know what we know about baseball

A sharp critic of the movie Moneyball, Phillips discerns a profound distortion in the film's depiction of a gap separating the tradition-bound baseball scouts (who rely on subjective judgments formed through direct observation) and the savvy statistical analysts (who trust only numerical data mined from scoresheets). As he retraces the histories of scouting and of scorecard-based analysis, he uncovers surprising convergence: ever since the nineteenth century, scouts have used statistical tools to clarify their intuitions; for just as long, scorekeepers have disguised subjective judgments as objective numbers. The interplay between baseball's scouts and its statistical analysts teaches readers a great deal specifically about the game in view, more broadly about the social process that generates any body of knowledge. As the dynamics of that process emerge in particular episodes such as the selection of Craig Biggio in baseball's 1987 draft and, three decades later, his induction into the Hall of Fame readers appreciate more fully the way statistical sophistication melds with human sensibility in a uniquely fascinating sport. A baseball book for cerebral fans.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2019 Booklist