Customer Reviews
Numbers and what they tell us - By: Earthshaker, 17 Sep 2008 
Baseball as a sport lends itself very much to statistics. Although a team game, it boils down to the confrontation of two individuals: the pitcher throws to the batter & one out of a set of defined outcomes occurs (the batter is out, the batter gets on basein one of several defined ways, or the batter fights the pitch off & lives to face another). Each game, then, can be summarised as a series of numbers, & the seasoned baseball fan can run his or her eye over the statisticsin the box-score & get a feel for what went onin the game, how it compares to others, & how players compare to each other.
So far, so simple. Let's look at that again though: each game can be summarised as a series of numbers. But which numbers to collect? And which have valuein assessing the worth of players? What, indeed, should people be looking forin a player? The search for accurate ways of assessing value is something many fans would associate with recent developmentsin the game, as summarisedin Michael Lewis's justly-celebrated "Moneyball" - the reassessment of batting average as a statistic & its partial replacement by on-base percentage, which finally gave some value to a player's patience & ability to work the pitcher into walking him. In this book, however, Schwarz demonstrates that baseball has been engagedin tinkering with its statistics from the word go: inheriting initial assumptions from cricket score-keeping, the game has fine-tuned what it records ever sincein an attempt to come up with accurate measurements of value. Accordingly, Schwarz's book is not "just" a history of the numbers, but something that encourages you to think about the nature of the game & make your own decisions about whether the statistics, over the years, have done the job adequately or not. (My own bugbear is the statistic Runs Batted In, which is chiefly a measurement of how good your team-mates are: I'd nominate that for eviction from the box-score.) It also helps that the stat-heads who, over the years, have contributed to the evolution of the box-score, have tended to be rather eccentric: Schwarz provides lively sketches of these men (always men) as well. A great read for the baseball fan & ideal for the off-season, when one needs a way to chew over the game during the dark winter months. Highly recommended.
Essential reading for all baseball fans. - By: C. J. Booth, 20 Jul 2006 
I have been really lucky this year to have read some fantastic baseball related books. Two of the very best have been Fantasyland, by Sam Walker, & this book. Whilst at first glance it may appear to be a stathead publication, dedicated to the sometimes anal collection & repetition of barely useful trivia & numbers, it isin fact a concise history of the game itself, seen through the eyes of modern day Sabermetricians. In terms of enlightenment about the great game, i would put this up with 'The thinking fans guide to baseball' & 'The Boys of Summer' & the author is to be congratulated on creating a universe of characters, both on the field & off, who come to life with his accurate & witty prose. A Home Run!
