Statistical Thinking in Sports [Hardcover]

Jim Albert (Editor), Ruud H. Koning (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584888687 | ISBN-13: 978-1584888680 | Publication Date: July 12, 2007 | Edition: 1

Since the first athletic events found a fan base, sports and statistics have always maintained a tight and at times mythical relationship. As a way to relay the telling of a game's drama and attest to the prodigious powers of the heroes involved, those reporting on the games tallied up the numbers that they believe best described the action and best defined the winning edge. However, they may not have always counted the right numbers. Many of our hallowed beliefs about sports statistics have long been fraught with misnomers. Whether it concerns Scottish football or American baseball, the most revered statistics often have little to do with any winning edge.

Covering an international collection of sports, Statistical Thinking in Sports provides an accessible survey of current research in statistics and sports, written by experts from a variety of arenas. Rather than rely on casual observation, they apply the rigorous tools of statistics to re-examine many of those concepts that have gone from belief to fact, based mostly on the repetition of their claims. Leaving assumption behind, these researchers take on a host of tough questions-

Is a tennis player only as good as his or her first serve?

Is there such a thing as home field advantage?

Do concerns over a decline in soccer's competitive balance have any merit?

What of momentum-is its staying power any greater than yesterday's win?

And what of pressure performers? Are there such creatures or ultimately, does every performer fall back to his or her established normative?

Investigating a wide range of international team and individual sports, the book considers the ability to make predictions, define trends, and measure any number of influences. It is full of interesting and useful examples for those teaching introductory statistics. Although the articles are aimed at general readers, the serious researcher in sports statistics will also find the articles of value and highly useful as starting points for further research.

Editorial Reviews

Review

… For those with an interest in sports and statistics, this book is an interesting and sometimes enlightening read. As a baseball fan, I particularly enjoyed the related chapters on clutch hitting, in-game momentum, and batter–pitcher matchups. I would recommend this text to any statistician contemplating related future research. Toward this end, additional information, data, and appendixes for some chapters are available on the book’s website.
—Technometrics, February 2009, Vol. 51, No. 1

A serious effort by thoughtful statisticians in the area of sports not only contributes to the general area, but also offers a window to the world on the work of the professional statistician. As a more general audience becomes aware of the work of the statistician, it can only serve to bolster the reputation of our profession in general. … All in all, I found the volume to be very enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone looking for an introduction to one of the subjects covered, as the introductions and bibliographies are generally quite good. … this volume has something for everyone.
—Gilbert W. Fellingham, Brigham Young University, The American Statistician, November 2008

…an international collection of current research in statistics and sports…is full of interesting and useful examples to use when teaching statistics.
—Susan Starkings, London South Bank University, International Statistical Review, 2008

About the Author

Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Product Details

• Hardcover: 298 pages
• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC; 1 edition (July 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584888687
• ISBN-13: 978-1584888680
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars collection of statistical articles on sports, May 22, 2008

By 

Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Statistical Thinking in Sports (Hardcover)

Jim Albert is a professor of statistics and an avid baseball fan. In addition to being one of the leaders of the Section on Statistics in Sports, he has also written the book "Curve Ball" with Jay Bennett that covers the use of statistical methods in baseball. Another one of his books was written for teachers of elementary statistics courses. It teaches them how to make an introductory statistics course interesting by having all the examples come from baseball.

This book is a collection of papers edited by Albert and Koning that covers a wide variety of sports, all with the same theme of showing how serious statistical methods can be used to learn important things about the sport through formal statistical inference and predictions. Albert and Koning wrote an introductory chapter and Albert has also written a chapter in this book about clutch hitting in baseball. Hal Stern, the chairman of the Department of Statistics at UC Irvine and another avid baseball fan contributes a chapter on pitcher-hitter match-ups in baseball.

In 2002 at the Joint Statistical Meetings in New York, I was the program chair for the Section on Statistics in Sport, I am also a professional statistician with a great interest in sports and baseball in particular. Jan Magnus from the Netherlands gave an invited talk about the importance of the second serve in tennis at the invited session that I organized. His paper about myths in tennis is an outgrowth of that research. In addition to baseball, American professional and college football, tennis, European and English league soccer, ice hockey and basketball, these articles cover such sports as Australian football and Scottish football, the Olympic events and track.

Of all the topics covered, baseball is the dominant one. This book makes for interesting reading.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection of acedemic-level articles on various sports topics, January 25, 2010

By 

Elihu D. Feustel "daringly" (South Bend, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Statistical Thinking in Sports (Hardcover)

While many of the topics are of general interest, this book is not geared for casual fans. The level of mathematics and analysis will exceed your average reader, and excite math/sports geeks. To fully absorb all the articles, you will need somewhat more than an undergraduate degree in mathematics. The difficulty level varies substantially though, and most articles are explained well enough to understand the conclusions, even if the math is beyond you. There are a lot of original concepts analyzed here. From the perspective of a sports modeler, there are some great ideas that serve as starting points to achieving a greater understanding of sports. The ideas and manner of presentation are extremely appealing to sports bettors that approach problems quantitatively.

Some of the original ideas that translate directly into sports gambling include
Statistical analysis of FIFA World rankings (and approaches to handicapping soccer)
Handicapping approaches in Scottish league football, including the use of a bi-variate Poisson distribution for scoring. This one article is worth the price of the book
A peculiar analysis of momentum in MLB following a double play (which I expected to be worthless, but proved very interesting)
Myths in tennis (which had some brilliant analysis, giving a starting point to a player tennis model)

I cannot remember the last time I was so excited reading a new sports stat book.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Useful Here, January 26, 2011

By 

AmazonUser - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Statistical Thinking in Sports (Hardcover)

The concept is promising, but the actual essays offer nothing of value. European soccer, long-distance running, and olympic events, all of which have almost no stats worth analyzing, are featured heavily. The one promising essay -- on home field advantage across various sports -- is already sorely outdated, as it includes only data from before 2006 and references sources from the 1990s.

In short, simply not worth the purchase or the read for a serious sports analysis enthusiast.