from Amazon
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Book Review: The Beauty of Short Hops…
How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball, by Sheldon and Alan Hirsch.
In case you haven’t followed some of the online controversy surrounding this new book, Rob Neyer, in a short SB Nation commentary, wrote this, after reading a press release about the book:
Is it worth pointing out that these same Red Sox have built their organizational philosophy around the Bill James-Moneyball myths? That without sabermetrics the Red Sox wouldn’t have won one World Series, let alone two? That every respectable sabermetrician (and most of the other ones, too) is highly aware of the Pigeon in the Outfield Factor? Anyway, I think I ordered this book months ago. Should be a hoot.
Murray Chass, the blogger, wrote a sort of review of the book, as well as a critique of Neyer’s comments and those of another blogger, Lincoln Mitchell, who also comments on the book (without having read it), as well as the stats versus non-stats debate in general.
In a recent post, I was the third member of the triumvirate who panned the book before reading it. A week or so ago, I received a copy, courtesy of Amazon.com and a blistering $29.95 on my part, or about 38.7 cents a page, considering that the entire book is 116 pages long, if we exclude the preface and the last two chapters, which are some examples of how “quirky” baseball can be, and a “diary” of the 2009 Boston Red Sox season to also show us how beautiful, interesting, and unpredictable baseball games can be, as opposed to the stoic, test-tube version that sabermetricians and new-age stat enthusiasts see through the lenses of their spreadsheets.
Here is a synopsis of the book, chapter by chapter:
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