The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

by J.C. Bradbury (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Subjecting recent baseball debates to plentiful regression analyses, Kennesaw State economist Bradbury gamely fuses our national pastime and the "dismal science" somewhat in the spirit of Steven Levitt (Freakonomics), Michael Lewis (Moneyball) and Bill James (Baseball Between the Numbers). Like the latter, Bradbury offers a front-office perspective on labor (that's the players), salaries, managerial influence, steroids, market size and the like. Like a scrappy role player, Bradbury's enthusiasm is evident (he's a Braves supporter); he offers a chapter on managers' ability to work the umps ("it appears that most managers don't seem to have any real impact in arguing balls and strikes") and investigates top pitching coach Leo Mazzone's contributions. A blogger at his Web site sabernomics.com (a play on the acronym SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research), Bradbury, while not forging new ground, shines in the closing chapters, in which he convincingly bucks the conventional wisdom that Major League Baseball behaves like a monopoly. While the numbers crunched are more of the Financial Times than the box score kind, the issues the book deals with are those discussed in many a barroom. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Bradbury would be the first guy to tell you that baseball fans are the most statistically minded sports fans out there. And he should know: he is an economics professor and a baseball addict (and a popular blogger, too). Here, he tackles some of the game's most cherished truisms and controversies. Is being left-handed really a disadvantage for a catcher? What role, really, do steroids play in being a home-run king? (You may be surprised at the answer.) How can we effectively evaluate a player's value to his team? Ball fans may be shocked at how relevant economics is to their favorite game, and economists may find an exciting new application for their specialty. Like John Allen Paulos, author of such "popular math" books as A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Bradbury writes with a smooth, accessible style and makes the tricky game of numbers seem both straightforward and exciting. Like Bill James' Abstracts (2003), this volume could become essential reading for baseball fans. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (March 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525949933
• ASIN: B000Z4LUW8
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #436,486 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An economist writes about baseball, June 2, 2007

By	King Yao - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed (Hardcover)

Bradbury is an associate professor of Economics. He wrote this book with an economists' viewpoint on baseball. He may have gone too in-depths in economics for some people's taste, but being an economics major in college, I enjoyed it and re-learned a few concepts. He covers some topics that have were previously discussed by folks like Bill James, Voros McCracken, Michael Lewis and Jay Gould (and gives them due credit). Topics that were new to me that I found interesting included the effect of "protection" by the on-deck hitter, managers lobbying for balls and strikes, and the baseball monopoly.

I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to baseball fans that are not afraid of charts, numbers and economic concepts. I would be the first in line to buy his second book if Bradbury expands his economic analysis and writing into other sports.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting look at baseball from a unique perspective, April 10, 2007

By	Joy Avery (FL, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed (Hardcover)

Very accessible, very interesting look at baseball. Bradbury tackles both high-profile issues in baseball (steroids, spending disparity amongst teams) as well as ideas you might not have even considered. (What can we learn from trends in hit batsmen?) I recommend this book to baseball fans with an interest in learning more about the inner-workings of the game as well as economists with even a passing interest in the sport.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Inquiring Minds Wander from This Book, August 25, 2007

By	Paul Bohannon (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed (Hardcover)

I work with economic theorists all the time, but I am not going to tell you this is a good book. Pieces of it are. Bradbury dwells on the steriods issue, prattling on and on about the lack of evidence. Yet, no where does he accept the challenge of studying the relative performances of the individuals to determine the effect of steriods. Rather, he just says it has never been proven. He even blurs the distinction of taking steriods for performance reasons vs. health reasons (and he never considers the differences in the steriods themselves!)

Some of his economic observations are interesting, those where he really studies the game and statistics. I, for one, can find other, more rewarding but boring books to give me a Saturday afternoon snooze. And Bradbury should stick to his statistical analysis of the game (where he excels), not the policy points (where he only debates under the ruse of economic theories).