Sabermetrics, the search for objective knowledge about baseball through statistical analysis, has taken over the national pastime. The authors argue that this approach began as a useful corrective but has come to harm baseball. The book demonstrates that the so-called moneyball approach, based on sabermetrics, offers only limited guidance for assembling a team, managing games, and evaluating player performance. Equally important, the obsession with statistics and vision of the game as wholly predictable obscure baseball's spectacular improvisational quality. It is the game's unquantifiable and relentless capacity to surprise--the source of wonder so central to its greatest stories and personalities--that informs any real appreciation of baseball.

From the front office to the family room, sabermetrics has dramatically changed the way baseball players are assessed and valued by fans and managers alike. Rocketed to popularity by the 2003 bestseller Moneyball and the film of the same name, the use of sabermetrics to analyze player performance has appeared to be a David to the Goliath of systemically advantaged richer teams that could be toppled only by creative statistical analysis. The story has been so compelling that, over the past decade, team after team has integrated statistical analysis into its front office. But how accurately can crunching numbers quantify a player's ability? Do sabermetrics truly level the playing field for financially disadvantaged teams? How much of the baseball analytic trend is fad and how much fact? The Sabermetric Revolution sets the record straight on the role of analytics in baseball. Former Mets sabermetrician Benjamin Baumer and leading sports economist Andrew Zimbalist correct common misinterpretations and develop new methods to assess the effectiveness of sabermetrics on team performance. Tracing the growth of front office dependence on sabermetrics and the breadth of its use today, they explore how Major League Baseball and the field of sports analytics have changed since the 2002 season. Their conclusion is optimistic, but the authors also caution that sabermetric insights will be more difficult to come by in the future. The Sabermetric Revolution offers more than a fascinating case study of the use of statistics by general managers and front office executives: for fans and fantasy leagues, this book will provide an accessible primer on the real math behind moneyball as well as new insight into the changing business of baseball.

“Winner of the 2018 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year.” The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series Champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades. On September 8, 2017, the Oakland A’s faced off against the Houston Astros in a game that would signal the passing of the Moneyball mantle. Though this was only one regular season game, the match-up of these two teams demonstrated how Major League Baseball has changed since the early days of Athletics general manager Billy Beane and the publication of Michael Lewis’ classic book. Over the past twenty years, power and analytics have taken over the game, driving carefully calibrated teams like the Astros to victory. Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat and studiously compares their mechanics against the ideal. Every batter in the lineup can crack homers and knows their launch angles. Teams are relying on unorthodox strategies, including using power-losing—purposely tanking a few seasons to get the best players in the draft. As he chronicles each inning and the unfolding drama as these two teams continually trade the lead—culminating in a 9-8 Oakland victory in the bottom of the ninth—Neyer considers the players and managers, the front office machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team, to answer the most pressing questions fans have about the sport today.

From Aerial Surveying over London & the UK in a noisy twin engine plane to flying small single and twin engine planes from the warmth of the Caribbean, up the East Coast of America, across the Atlantic Ocean, over the Greenland Ice Cap towards the North Pole and back down to Fairoaks Airport near London. A light-hearted look at flying.

Propounding his "small ball theory" of sports literature, George Plimpton proposed that "the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature." Of course he had the relatively small baseball in mind, because its literature is formidable--vast and varied, instructive, often wildly entertaining, and occasionally brilliant. From this bewildering array of baseball books, Ron Kaplan has chosen 501 of the best, making it easier for fans to find just the books to suit them (or to know what they're missing). From biography, history, fiction, and instruction to books about ballparks, business, and rules, anyone who loves to read about baseball will find in this book a companionable guide, far more fun than a reference work has any right to be.

How to stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards.” Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think replacing people with software might make the world a better place—while tech industry critics warn darkly about surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the future, they all agree: machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that’s not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms. Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some things (playing chess), but not others (life-and-death decisions, or anything involving uncertainty). Gigerenzer explains why algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners (love is not chess), why self-driving cars fall prey to the Russian Tank Fallacy, and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent “black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will reoffend or show up in court. He invokes Black Mirror, considers the privacy paradox (people want privacy, but give their data away), and explains that social media get us hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the “like” button. We shouldn’t trust smart technology unconditionally, Gigerenzer tells us, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly, either.

It is difficult to believe that at one time hops were very much the marginalized ingredient of modern beer, until the burgeoning craft beer movement in America reignited the industry's enthusiasm for hop-forward beer. The history of hops and their use in beer is long and shrouded in mystery to this day, but Stan Hieronymous has gamely teased apart the many threads as best anyone can, lending credence where due and scotching unfounded claims when appropriate. It is just one example of the deep research through history books, research articles, and first-hand interviews with present-day experts and growers that has enabled Stan to produce a wide-ranging, engaging account of this essential beer ingredient. While they have an exalted status with today's craft brewers, many may not be aware of the journey hops take to bring them, neatly baled or pressed into blocks and pellets, into the brewhouse. Stan paints a detailed and, at times, personal portrait of the life of hops, weaving technical information about hop growing and anatomy with insights from families who have been running their hop farms for generations. The author takes the reader on a tour of the main growing regions of central Europe, where the famous landrace varieties of Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Germany originate, to England and thence to North America, and latterly, Australia and New Zealand. Growing hops and supplying the global brewing industry has always been a hard-nosed business, and Stan presents statistics on yields, acreage, wilt and other diseases, interspersed with words from the farmers themselves that illustrate the challenges and uncertainties hop growers face. Along the way, Stan gives details about some of the most well-known varieties—Saaz, Hallertau, Tettnang, Golding, Fuggle, Cluster, Cascade, Willamette, Citra, Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin, and many others—and their history of use in the Old World and New World. The section culminates in a catalog of 105 hop varieties in use today, with a brief description of character and vital statistics for each. Of course, the art and science of using hops in making beer is not forgotten. Once the hops have been harvested, processed, and delivered to the brewery, they can be used in myriad ways. The author moves from the toil of the hop gardens to that of the brewhouse, again presenting a blend of history and present-day interviews and research articles to explain alpha acids, beta acids, bitterness, harshness, smoothness, and the deterioration of bittering flavors over time. Perception is all important when discussing bitterness, and the author touches on genetics, evolution, the vagaries of individuals' perceptions of bitterness, and changing tastes, such as the “lupulin shift.” The meaning of the international bitterness unit, or IBU, is not always properly understood and here Stan lays out a brief history of how the IBU came to be and an appreciation of the many variables affecting utilization in the boil and final bitterness in beer. Adding hops is not as simple as it sounds, and Stan's research illustrates that if you ask ten brewers about something you will get eleven opinions. Early additions, late additions, continuous hopping, first wort hopping, and hop bursting are all discussed with a healthy dose of pragmatic wisdom from brewers and a pinch of chemistry. There then follows an entire chapter devoted to the druidic art of dry hopping, following its commonplace usage in nineteenth-century England to the modern applications found in today's US craft brewing scene. The author uncovers hop plugs, hop coffins, and the “pendulum method,” along with the famous hop rocket and hop torpedo used by some of America's leading craft breweries. Every brewer has their dry hopping method and, gratifyingly, many are happy to share with the author, making this chapter a great source for inspiration and ideas. Many of the brewers the author interviewed were also happy to share recipes. There are 16 recipes from breweries in America, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Germany, and New Zealand. These not only present delicious beers but give some insight into how professional brewers design their recipes to get the most out of their hops. As always, Stan imparts wisdom in an engaging and accessible fashion, making this an amazing compendium on “every brewer's favorite flower.”