The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won

This was a fairly interesting book. From what I gather about Freakenomics (a book I have never read but heard much about) this book seems to try to be a sports take on that. I can say that it did bring some interesting points to me however I felt that in a lot of cases the information was far too broad in scope and some of the conclusions they seemed to bring about were not fully justified.

The main point that they bring home, quite successfully I might add, is that the best way to look at performance is from a large pool of data. Trying to forecast performance based on streaks will get you nowhere. I never really gave this much thought in that say a .257 hitter batting .350 for the last two weeks is unlikely to finish the season as a .350 hitter. This makes a lot of sense but on andy day during the two week streak you have to wonder when performance will come crashing down to level things out.

There are gems all the way through the book. How home field advantage is really a result of the affect of the home crowd on referees, the talk about the Chicago Cubs and how despite their terrible record in baseball they are one of the more lucrative teams. The Steve Bartman recount is also quite interesting for I knew about it but not how badly it went for the guy. As for some of the quotes one stands out, that being when a paper asserting the fallacy of the hot hand was brought to Bob Knight, a college coach, he dismissed it with: "There are so many variables involved in shooting the basketball that a paper like this doesn't really mean anything." By that same token, that quote could apply to this book.

All in all there IS some interesting information in this book that enlightened me about certain situations. There are also some areas that I don't feel were covered adequately and others that did not really look at the situation accurately. Definitely a 4 star read for insight and readability.

This book is yet another spin-off of the Freakonomics motif. While unfamiliar with Mr. Moskowitz's previous work, I have long been a fan of Mr. Wertheim's columns in Sports Illustrated--particularly his tennis coverage.

Since fans of sports are prone to be contrarians, reading this book would be a useful tool in a sports fan's debate arsenal. But it is not a simple catalog of facts or trivia. As you read the individual chapters--each dealing with a different subject--you will start to understand what the authors mean when they state in the introduction:

"Life, one might say, is a microcosm for sports. Athletes and coaches may perform superhuman feats, but they're subject to standard rules of human behavior and economics just like the rest of us.

- That which is recognizable or apparent is often given too much credit, whereas the real answer often lies concealed.
- Incentives are powerful motivators and predictors of how athletes, coaches, owners and fans behave--sometimes with undesirable consequences.
- Human biases and behavior play a pivotal role in almost every aspect of life, and sports are no exception.
- The role of luck is under-appreciated and often misunderstood."

...

The goal of 'Scorecasting' is not to tell you what to think about sports but rather how to think about sports a little differently."

The reader will most likely change how he/she perceives sports, but also, gain insight into the greater role of psychology in human decision making.

Scorecasting busts many of the myths of the conventional wisdom about sports. It uses statistical analysis to challenge all the assumptions sports nuts grow up believing. The authors are a couple University of Chicago propeller head sports nerds.

Scorecasting follows in the wake of Freakonomics. It's well written and entertaining while providing hard statistics. Some of the cool topics covered are:
- umpire bias in home games due to the size of the crowd;
- conservative/aggressive approach to coaching depends on the financial securiy of the coach;
- free throw shooting, field goal kicking, penalty shots, etc. are unaffected by crowd noise;
- hitting and shooting streaks and slumps by individuals and teams reach equilibrium;
- momentum is a myth;
and most enlightening of all:
- the Cubs have a financial incentive to remain mediocre.
Turns out that psychology (namely loss aversion) and incentives dictate a lot of sports decision making.

Most of the blather on sports talk shows is blather.MONSTERS OF THE MIDWAY The Death, Resurrection, and Redemption of Chicago Football

In this book the authors take sports statistics and apply them to the psychology of sports decision-making. Think Freakonomics for sports. The result is a very entertaining read. From the enduring attendance rates of Cubs fans, to the effectiveness of icing opponents, to the success of 4th down attempts in football, and the realities of home field advantage, this book draws upon logic but comes to some fascinating conclusions. The audio book has a great narrator, however with all of the facts and figures it may be a better hard copy read if taking in the complete research.

There's such wonderful work being done on sports statistics now that a.) they're taken seriously and b.) powerful statistical tools are applied.

Moskowitz and Wertheim are looking at lot of Big Picture questions. They're not analysingif you should sac the runner to 2nd in the bottom of the 9th, tie game, nobody out. They wonder about home field advantage, how big is it and WHY does it occur? That kind of stuff.

They make convincing cases. Lots of evidence backs up their speculations.

It's not ALL Big Picture. There's amusing stuff about what happens when a ball player needs ONE more hit to hit .300 for the season. But, even little stuff like that is thoroughly backed up.

Great work and any sports fan who has the least interest in his sport's stats should read this.

Tobias Moskowitz and Jon Wertheim have written a book for sports fans that, as its subtitle says, explores "the hidden influences behind how sports are played and games are won." Scorecasting does pretty much deliver the goods, but some of what is revealed is at times a bit underwhelming since common sense and careful observation tells much the same story without all the stats.

There is something in the book for fans of both professional and amateur sports, and everything in between, such as our semi-professional college sports programs. The authors take a hard look at football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, and soccer and use statistics, personal observation, interviews, and speculation to make surprising points concerning what is really happening out there.

I suspect that most fans will be least surprised by the book when it comes to whatever sport they spend the most time following. In my case, that sport is baseball. While the authors spend a substantial number of pages explaining what goes on in the head of a major league umpire when the game is being played in a loud and hostile ballpark, little about "makeup calls" and special treatment for star players, especially in late innings or in crucial situations, will surprise baseball nuts.

The chapter on the use of steroids in baseball did, however, give me something new to think about. Ever wonder why most of the players caught using steroids are minority players from poor countries? Moskowitz and Wertheim will fill you in.

There are chapters on home field advantage, the relative value of blocked shots in basketball, the situational pressure of putting, the "myth" of the hot hand and momentum, icing the field goal kicker in game situations, why early draft choices are so overvalued and, among a few others, whether or not defense really wins championships.

There really is something here for everyone, regardless of how rabid a sports fan one might be, and there are some surprises and observational gems to be found. If you enjoyed Freakonomics or SuperFreakonomics, the odds are pretty high that you will love this one. If you hated those two books and dislike sports, run away from Scorecasting.

Just remember, sports fans, as one of the book's chapter titles puts it, "There's no I in team, but there is an "m" and an "e." Or as Michael Jordon once said when a team owner chastised him by using the "there's no I in team," thing, "There's an I in win. So which way do you want it?"

This one will make you chuckle a bit while it presents you with a new way to look at something you've been watching your entire life. It might even make you feel a little smarter because you already knew some of this stuff.

Rated at: 3.5

This book consists mainly of counterintuitive statistical findings about sports, along with a few confirmations of conventional wisdom.

Examples include evidence that the home-team advantage generally isn't due to players playing better at home (blame the refs!), and that streaks in performance, such as shooting baskets or hitting baseballs, are random, not due to ability heating up or cooling off. The chapter on the Chicago Cubs debunks the myth of a bad luck curse and confirms what most outside certain parts of Chicago already suspected: they lose the old-fashioned way, by being bad. The more interesting part of that story is evidence that their diehard "lovable losers" fans actually lessen the incentive for better performance, e.g. that attendance at Wrigley Field is much more affected by their beer prices than their team performance, in contrast to better teams.

The myth-busting is fun, as is having the light come on when the authors explain why things aren't as they seem. The explanations are generally easy enough to follow.

The frustrating part is when the light doesn't come on. Some findings remain counterintuitive even after the explanations, and sometimes the analysis is crucially incomplete or partially faulty.

For example, the analysis of performance streaks as random doesn't address how it could be that performance remains so unaffected by effort, illness, injury, family problems, drug use, extra or less practice, rest or no rest, strong or lax defense, and so many things one would expect to lead to streaks. In illustrating the endowment effect (a form of loss aversion), the authors point to the vast difference between the amount Duke students are willing to pay for basketball tickets ($170) and the least amount they're willing to sell them for ($2,400), without considering that many students may not be able to or want to pay what they think the full value is. They don't give any clue how it's possible for "the average NBA player" to have a +/- two points lower in the fourth quarter than in the first (apparently the average player doesn't play against average players part of that time). There are numerous lapses like that, mostly minor.

Fortunately, the authors usually make a strong cumulative case, all things considered.

Great stuff for the sports fan, especially the slightly wonky one.

This is a really well written book that addresses many sports myths. There is considerable time spent on home field advantage, which is one of the best parts of the book. The tone of the book is very much "we're just sports guys who wanted to settle the debate." I'm not a total math head, but I was able to follow the statistical reasoning. There are lots of great examples, many of which are very recent - from the 2010 season. There is some humor - most of which might make you chuckle, but not really laugh out loud.

There is a ton of original research, as well as reference to work by others.

I read this on vacation, and knocked it out over the course of two four hour flights. It was very engaging.

Every time I said to myself, "but wait a minute, what about X?", they addressed "X" in the next section.

One topic not covered, but ripe for the sequel (the epilogue hints at a sequel) - What about the idea that teams perform worse when given a bye week before the playoffs? Similar to icing the kicker, which is addressed, but more specific - think the 2010 Pats vs Jets. Is it better to have an extra week to prepare, or does that extra week without real action make you soft?

Throughout the book they try to make connections to the financial world of investing, but never really close the loop. I would have preferred them to either take that stuff out, or to give it heavier treatment. As it is, they make some naked assertions about loss aversion and other theories applying to investing, but don't provide the stats to back up their claims that the sports stats and theories apply to other fields. (I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they didn't prove it.)

If you enjoyed Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game or Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.), you will like this.

Scorecasting provides a very insightful read that will change the way you look at sports and how you watch the games. I have found that watching sports is much more interesting after reading these chapters. I possess a new perspective for why one coach may go for it on 4th and 1 and another may not...for why home teams really do have an advantage (as well as why they don't)...why the ref doesn't call anything during the last minute of a close game...and lots of other scenarios that come up frequently in sports.

I do have a couple of criticisms of the book, which is why it gets 4 instead of 5 stars:

There are a lot of statistics used in this book--both sports "stats" and the more academic type of statistics. That's not a bad thing. I like stats---both kinds. However, at times it seemed the authors would use statistics selectively to support their position. In one chapter a difference of 1% would support their stance that there IS a difference and the next, the same difference would be so minute that it supported their point that there was no difference. Also, they would look at certain subsets of groups of games, but wouldn't indicate how many games were in that subset. So, if the subset only consisted of x number of games, the differences they found might not have been statistically compelling.

Also, it seemed like a lot of the research was not original and a lot of it was done by other U of Chicago professors. The book does have an extensive bibliography. I don't mind that they cite other sources, but it was heavily from U of C profs (same as one of the authors), and some of the research was less than scientific. In one example, they got the data from another U of C researcher's mom, based on her taping a bunch of soccer matches.

These are relatively minor shortcomings, in my opinion. It is unfortunate for the authors that it is already outdated: one chapter mentions that the Rangers are one of the teams that has never even been to a World Series. Not their fault...who woulda thunk it? Too bad the publishers couldn't wait til after this past October. Otherwise the book was a very enjoyable read that will make me think differently about how I watch sports. I especially enjoyed the chapter "Go For It."

Two lifelong sports fans, one an academic and one a sportswriter, have martialed existing research and done some of their own to puncture a whole raft of sports myths. Hot hand? Scrambling to trade for first round draft picks? Home court/field/stadium advantage? What to do on 4th down? There is conventional wisdom for all of these, and it's all wrong.

There's no such thing as a hot hand. Streaks, yes, just as with tossing pennies. But no statistical influence of one goal / basket / hit / at bat on the next. Hard to believe, but true. The best predictor of the outcome is not the previous outing, but the average of the last many outings.

Most teams who trade for first and second round picks pay too much. Early draft picks are notoriously unpredictable in actual league play, so the risk is too high.

The home court advantage? Well, here's the weakest argument. There's a correlation not with crowd noise, teams whose skills match the home field layout, or any of the other usual suspects, but with officiating. Why officiating is (unconsciously) biased is something the authors don't explain. And they don't overcome my skepticism about correlation not being causation.

And so on. There are a lot of other very interesting conclusions about the Cubs, about the last at bat of the season for a .300 hitter (and why a .299 hitter is probably actually better). All interesting, all fairly well supported by stats. Though I do wonder how else the same or other stats could be presented to support a different conclusion in some cases. And correlation is not causation (repeat after me).

The good news is that, as one of the authors is a sportswriter, the material is clear, engaging, and convincing. So go ahead and have your assumptions challenged. You'll like it, unless you'd rather not give in to evidence and go with what your gut tells you. Remember, though, your gut is blind.

In "Scorecasting," authors Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim manage to go beyond the usual sports statistics and look at the numbers in eye-opening ways.

Sports fans will find a lot of thought-provoking ideas in this book, but the two chapters on the home field advantage are the most fascinating of all. There's no doubt, the authors note, that there is a home field advantage. But why does it exist?

Many people assume that athletes simply play better when their fans are cheering them on, or at least that the visiting team doesn't play as well without crowd support. Some think the visiting athletes lose an edge from traveling long distances, eating out and sleeping away from home. Some fans figure that home teams simply are more comfortable playing in their home environment.

In fact, say Moskowitz and Wertheim, none of those create the home field advantage. Instead, the key element is referee and umpire bias.

Moskowitz, a professor of finance, and Wertheim, a writer for Sports Illustrated, carefully dissect a slew of statistics to show that referees and umpires are influenced by home fans into giving a slight - but signifcant - edge to home teams. The home teams are called for fewer rules violations, and get the edge in close calls.

Consider:
* In soccer, referees give more "added time" at the end of the game if the home team is behind, but less if the home team is ahead. Home teams also are called for fewer penalties, and receive fewer red (ejection) and yellow (caution) cards. Notably, when two European soccer teams were forced by their league to play their games in empty stadiums because their fans had been too unruly, the home field advantage disappeared.
* In baseball, home teams strike out less and walk more than the visitors, especially when the game is close. "In crucial situations, the home team receives far fewer called strikes per called pitch than does the away team," Moskowitz and Wertheim say.
* In the NFL, the home team is penalized less and also benefits the most from the more valuable penalties, such as those that result in first downs. Home NFL teams used to have a big advantage in turnovers, but that has disappeared, the authors say, since the league began using instant replay to check the accuracy of referee decisions - itself a revealing development
* In the NBA, home teams get a huge advantage in calls that involve the most referee judgment, such as blocking fouls and palming, but no advantage in calls where the refs have little discretion, such as 24-second violations.

How do we know that visiting players don't just play worse, perhaps because they're tired or frustrated by the crowd? Because in the parts of the game where we can isolate performance, the authors show that there's no difference. Visiting teams shoot free throws just as well as home teams (yes, even with all those opposing fans waving their arms behind the backboard). Punters and kickers in football do just as well on the road as at home. In hockey shootouts, a situation where the referees have little role, home and away teams do equally well.

The authors further show that the distance teams travel has no effect on the home field advantage, nor does it matter when a team travels to play in a different climate, such as when the Miami Dolphins play on "the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field."

The authors don't accuse referees and umpires of consciously favoring the home teams, but rather of subtly being influenced by screaming fans. And indeed, the more packed the stadium, the bigger the referee bias.

Moskowitz and Wertheim tackle other subjects besides the home field advantage and while not every chapter is equally revealing, there's still plenty that will make you stop and think.

They show that Chicago Cubs fans come to games regardless of the performance of the team (perhaps giving the owner little reason to seek better talent), but will stay away when beer prices go up. They show that NBA refs give an edge to star players - something that many fans have suspected, but it's nice to see it confirmed in numbers. They suggest that football coaches punt more than they should - numbers suggest that going for it is often the better option - and that basketball coaches often make a mistake by pulling out of the game a player who is close to fouling out.

Look at the sports page in your local newspaper. Invariably it will have a box score for almost any sport. And the numbers it contain, "statistics," if you will, for each player and side of the game help to tell the story. Yet in recent years - most notably in the 1980s with Bill James and the start of the Sabermetrics revolution that took over baseball in the late 1990s - these stats have came in question and been replaced, in sports management and analysis circles, by alternative ways to understand the impact of a player in ecah game. Notable franchises in every major league - NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL - now employ statisticians in order to assess their teams and their potential.

But these stats can be frustrating and difficult to comprehend to most laymen. Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won is a book that attempts to show the numbers behind the game and provide some reasons behind the actions on the field. ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback has long advocated for going for it on 4th down and now we have some stats to back it up. The importance of the coin toss, how a strike zone shifts dependent on the count are all examined with enough detail to satisfy all your most innocent questioning.

That being said, being a stat head, fantasy baseball junkie and frequent Vegas denizen, some of the chapters are sort of pointless. A .299 batter wanting to swing to get his average to .300? Of course he swings, his salary depends on it! Homefield advantage's impact on the game? Vegas has been playing us with that for years! When it comes to a lot of the revelations in the book, they just demonstrate that financial reasons motivate almost all parts of the agme, something I think we all knew when the Cowboys built a billion dollar stadium and the Yankees payroll is over a quarter billion dollars a year. To that extent, this book at times confirms the obvious rather than reveals anything new.

Scorecasting is a good book and a quick read for sports fans. For a lot of us, it will help confirm what you already know and provide insight as to why players / coaches carry out the game in the fashion that they do. My only large complaint is that they got their chapter on the Cubs all wrong - it's not finances, Chicago, it's a curse!

Most of us are familiar with the franchise that has become "Freakonomics", with (so far) 2 books and a movie, so it was clear that it would only be a matter of time before the cloning would commence. I've seen some other books in the same vein already, but was not particularly charmed. Now comes this one, with is a Freakonomics-for-sports.

In "Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won" co-authors Tobias Moskowitz (a professor in Finance) and Jon Wertheim (a Sports Illustrated writer) take the proven formula of Freakonomics, namely take a closer look at some topic and reverse engineer it from the outside in. In the first chapter, for example, the authors look at the pitching calls made by baseball umpires. Now armed with pitch-by-pitch hard data, it's amazing indeed to see the difference between calls made on a 0-2 count, or a 3-0 count. A hot topic in the NFL lately has been whether or not to go for it on 4th down. The authors go on the provide chapter and verse (and statistics) demonstrating that (i) indeed it is almost always better to go for it, even deep in a team's own territory, but that (ii) only coaches with near-complete job security (such as Bill Belichik) actually consider it. The authors discuss the "melt-down" of the Patriots at the Colts over a number of pages, just fascinating stuff you are a football fan. Later in the book the authors look at the effect of "icing the kicker", another one of those NFL traditions. Guess what: statistically it turns out there is ZERO difference between icing or not icing a kicker. And on and on...

If you like Freakonomics and you are a sports fan, you cannot go wrong with this book, period. I found it to be a page turner from start to finish. So while my rating is only 3 stars for originality, I nevertheless have to give it 5 stars for entertainment value. Hence my final blended 4 star rating.

Ever since Bill James' Baseball Abstract in 1977, people have been combining sports and analysis. The best of these books, like the original, are imbued with a deep love of and appreciation for the sport, combined with rigorous analysis. Not many works live up to that standard. Many are unimaginative number-crunching leading to often fallacious conclusions through either failure to understand the sport in question or poor statistical skills. Most of the pre-James work falls into this category.

Of the more successful books, some present sound analysis but are dull, while others are entertaining but with weak or flawed analysis. Sportscasting hits the ball out of the park on both counts. The authors (presumably mostly Sports Illustrated writer Wertheim) have interviewed many players and officials on the subjects. These are woven engagingly into chapters that stimulate your interest in the question, show the subtleties and pitfalls involved in answering it, and then provide answers. You may not always agree with the answers, but you will know a lot more about the question than when you started. Too many sports-and-numbers books are written in the "I'm smarter than anyone involved in the game" spirit and give practitioners no chance to rebut the conclusions.

Toby Moskowitz, the other author, is among the most brilliant quantitative analysts alive today. He is not merely competent in handling statistical arguments, he was a uncommonly penetrating insight. While many books set up a single quantitative criterion and test it, Scorecasting works rigorously through competing explanations and objections. It compiles a strong body of evidence supporting its conclusions from a variety of perspectives. It is written to the standard of a peer-reviewed economics journal rather than the sports-talk-radio standard.

Sports fans, even those with no taste for numbers, will deepen their appreciation of the game. Analysts of all stripes will sharpen their skills. Anyone in either camp should read this book. Anyone in both camps must read this book.

As both an engineer geek and a football fanatic, this book immediately appealed to me. It aims to tackle several sports myths using statistical analysis pulled from years of professional sports data, and while that sounds boring, it is truly anything but.

The authors do an excellent job of using statistics to break down all types of sports myths. "Defense wins championships?" Maybe, maybe not. Punt on fourth and a mile? Not always. The Chicago Cubs are cursed? Troubled maybe, but probably not cursed. Each myth is discussed in detail, and set up using anecdotal evidence from across the major sports world. Then the analysis is described in layman's terms, and the results range from entertaining (yes, there is a home field advantage, but not for the reasons you think) to almost shocking (what do you mean don't EVER punt?).

As an engineer, I am a numbers guy, but the book is written in such a way that any sports enthusiast will appreciate it, even if he or she never got past algebra. It's easy to understand and easy to retain, and I have already used the book to spark debates at work, in my carpool, and with my father (a fellow sports guy) over the phone. You might not agree with all the conclusions, but this book will certainly make an impression.

Great gift for sports nuts, especially from football, basketball, soccer, and hockey. I am already looking forward to the sequel.

It's amazing the number of things that we believe that may not be true. I suppose that's just the way we are. We can't go around questioning everything. If we did, life would be less efficient. There are so many of these beliefs and assumptions that we live with every day that it would probably take many books to catalogue them all. In Scorecasting, authors Moskowitz and Wertheim do the cataloguing, and the refuting, for us for unfounded beliefs in sports.

Take for example the notion of home field advantage. It exists, but not for the reasons we typically believe - travel, familiarity with ballpark, home crowd support. The real reason is the officials' (umpires, refs, etc) subconscious bias towards the home team in certain situations. This may be hard to believe but the authors provide the data to back it up. What about the wisdom of always punting on fourth and long in football? Here the better strategy, again supported by the stats, is to go for it. These are just a sample of the various beliefs that sports enthusiasts have which are disproven with a combination of statistical analysis, economic incentives and psychological forces. Moskowitz and Wertheim conclude with perhaps their most interesting chapter when they ask if baseball's Chicago Cubs are cursed. You'll be surprised by the answer but it makes sense.

Serious and not so serious sports fans should read this book for its fascinating analysis and surprising conclusions.

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influence Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won is an interesting take on various sports topics. It reminded my of a kind of freakonomics for dummies type approach to various myths and assumptions in major sports and does a good job of looking at questions from a thorough statistical standpoint to draw its conclusions.

Various chapter titles include:
Tiger Woods is Human (and not for the reason you might think)
Offense Wins Championships
The Value of a Blocked Shot (Why Dwight Howards 232 blocks are worth less then Tim Duncan 149)
Thanks Mr Rooney (Why Black NFL Coaches are doing worse then ever and why its a good thing)
etc

Quite a few of the chapters involve analyzing referee error and its various effect and there is a very interesting chapter on the NFL draft.

Overall I would recommend this to any general sports fan who is interested in statistical analysis of pertinent sports subjects although I've seen it done elsewhere before (specifically in Baseball Between the Numbers: Why everything you know about the game is wrong) I hesitate to give it 5 stars because it isn't great enough to transcend the genre by any means, or written particularly well. In the end, read the first chapter in the bookstore and if you like it pick it up because the rest of the book is similar enough.

I breezed through this book in couple days because I found the subjects so interesting. I've always enjoyed the Freakonomics books and this is similar to those except for the fact that the studies are about something I care about, sports. I'm not a stats expert by any means so if I'm misinterpreting things then I'm sorry but I like how most claims were supported numerically.

I found it so interesting that much of sports is driven by mental barriers of the coaches, refs, players, or even fans of the teams. Some examples:
-why you should always go for it on 4th down and how one high school coach has used this strategy for success
-why blocked shots have a variable weight (I was already aware of the topic thanks to Bill Simmons!)
-why trading up in the NFL draft is not worth the risk or money
-why the Cubs will always suck (which doesn't bother me because I'm a Brewers fan)

Overall, I thought that this book was a very enjoyable read. I would like to see a follow-up edition or another version to further dive in to some topics and to add new ones, for example:
-with the NFL's new rookie wages, how is the draft affected? (probably too early for statistical analysis)
-how the NFL's new overtime rule has changed the game (again this topic might be too new to fully analyze)
-take a deep dive into college sports, especially the NCAA Men's BBall Tourney

Again, I loved this book. If you're not sure if it's for you then read the first chapter for free on the store or you can always go to the library and check it out like I did :).

There are some fascinating and enlightening portions of this book that make the dry sections and stilted views of some chapters worth reading. The section that detailed how a baseball umpire's strike zone is affected by the count is astonishing and inarguable as presented ( although the graphics look to have been done on the cheap ). The ferreting out of the reason behind home field advantage is noteworthy. But to me, what's missing from this book, and perhaps by design, is the lack of accountability for the "soul" of competition; the non-measurables that clearly have a say in the outcome of athletic competition. Part of the real beauty and allure of sports is that part of competition that cannot be explained statistically. Too many chapters contained herein, and too much of the writing is so dry that it detracts from the message.

Wade through the dross to find the worthy gems which are certainly there.

For the average sports fan statistics are the lifeblood of sports. They give meaning to individual accomplishment, they provide fodder for Monday morning quarterbacking, and they produce an endless supply of data for seemingly meaningful yet mostly worthless analysis. Moskowitz and Wertheim dive head first into the intrigue of statistics and turn commonplace ideas on their head.

The basis of Scorecasting is that what seem like obvious conclusions from statistics are often just the opposite. The book provides in depth analyses and illustrates an abundance of counter intuitive conclusions, many of which will cause real changes in the nature of how you view sports. Just when you think you know with certainty the meaning of some element of sport, these guys show you why you might have to think again. Home field advantage? Punting versus going for it? The importance of blocked shots? No matter what you think already, be prepared to have your views shaken, crushed, and reformed. Scorecasting is the new paradigm.

In this wildly entertaining analysis of decision making in sports, the authors do not necessarily add to the knowledge on loss aversion, decision framing, error of omission/commission etc. However, without using standard narratives of the experiments, Moskowitz and Wertheim provide a easy-to-relate-to context - sports. Decision making in sports (and the use of statistics) have been covered in other books as well (Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is a classic favorite). However the combination of Thaler-like research insights, Freakonomics-like humor and ESPN-like narration makes this a compelling and enriching read. Whether it is the discussion on the influence (or not) of crowds, coaches, star players, punting decisions, or a multitude of others, it is amazing how concepts one is familiar with (via the behavioral economics literature) become clearer when you read them in a context you can relate to with more relative ease (who hasn't pretended to be more insightful than the TV commentators or the quarterbacks themselves!). An excellent read.

Scorecasting will help sports enthusiasts better appreciate the sports they watch and impress their friends with actual substantiated comments, especially when they can correct the announcers. Scorecasting focuses mainly on the truths v. myths of basketball, baseball and football. The authors also address hockey and soccer occassionally on some points. I enjoyed reading the book and seeing the statistics on icing the kicker and free throw shooter, going for it on 4th down--a great example on this one, what goes through players' minds in various scenarios, loss aversion as motivation v. gain, home v. away bias among refs and finally the curse of the Chicago Cubs (or is it that the team makes money win or lose?)

A plethora of research is behind this book, as the authors substantiate their claims. At times, they get into some minutiae but readers can easily skim through it. The authors have a jovial, warm tone throughout the book and don't hold punches.

Well, Soccernomics was the first sports book to use the Freakonomics' model and come up a winner. Now Scorecasting does the same. Lots of food for thought about sports from why home field/court/ice advantage is so strong (and you'll be surprised exactly why that is so) to the reason the Chicago Cubs are cursed (and it's not due to a billy goat, black cat or Bartman).

L. Jon Wertheim is a terrific writer who has mainly written about tennis and basketball both in book form and for Sports illustrated. Although the book can get bogged down in stat analysis a bit (I did not love the pie charts or bar graphs), it's not really a stathead book. The chapters are pretty short and sweet so there's no time to get bored. You don't like one chapter, move on. They are more like little sports essays or vignettes.

The great thing is it makes you think and how many sports books let alone Web sites or blogs get you to do that?

I enjoyed this book which consisted of a series of articles about sports, from a statistical point of view. The authors found patterns in the world of sports and tried to explain them and make connections to outside the world of sports. Issues included: Is there a home field advantage? If so, why? Do players get hot? Are the Chicago Cubs cursed? I am a math teacher and a big sports fan, and predictably, I really enjoyed reading this. It is entertaining and very clear, even if you are not a math person.

"Scorecasting" takes a statistical approach to many of the most widely-held maxims about sports and ends up disproving just about all of them. But don't worry - the authors skillfully choose their verbiage to prevent the book from becoming a Master's thesis on statistics.

Each chapter is actually its own distinct essay, so the reader can even skip from topic to topic without getting lost. All major sports are covered, often in the same chapter. For instance, the entry about the existence of "make-up calls" covers both the strike zone in baseball and NBA refs swallowing their whistles at the ends of games.

Whether or not the research is faulty as some other reviewers have claimed, the results here provide endless fodder for further barroom debate. "Scorecasting" is a well-written book that provides some fresh angles for any sports fanatic to examine and enjoy.

The authors did a good job of exploring various topics in sports, analyzing statistics, showing what factors were really relevant and how much so. Among the topics they looked at: "icing" a kicker or free throw shooter doesn't work, hot/cold streaks don't exist, offense/defense doesn't win championships, home field advantage exists and it's due to a combination of crowd size and referees, why certain players use steroids, the true value of Tim Duncan's blocks show he's the greatest, punting is usually a terrible idea, and many more.

I'm a sucker for statistical analysis of sporting data, and having read many books, articles, and websites, I still came across a plethora of new ideas in this book. Anyone who is an avid sports geek needs to read this book.

Toby Moscowitz is a brilliant young economist, and he knows it. The book is a collection of stories about sport, mostly showing the inefficiency of what professionals do, or how economics or psychology helps explain some of the athletes' behavior.

Some of the stories represent new discoveries of Dr. Moscowitz & his partner. Most of them have been written about many times before by less famous authors. But in very few cases does Dr. Moscowitz acknowledge previous work, or show humility or give credit to those who have looked at these issues before.

You can almost hear him say: "have no fear, Dr. Moscowitz is here." Never mind previous work. Those guys were amateur economists & statisticians. Never mind years of sports tradition. I found this attitude grating, and it took away from my enjoyment of some good stories.

In a few cases, he even maked major mistakes.

For example, Dr. Moscowitz rejects the concept of "replacement value" for production in baseball, which has been an established concept of baseball research for at least a decade. It contends that any major league team can get an approximated 20th percentile player production for free, from the minors. Therefore an *average* player has some value, and only production beyond this freely available level is valuable. Conversely, Dr. Moscowitz compares all performance either to average, or to 0-level performance. No serious baseball researcher should make this mistake.

If Toby Moscowitz wants to show that his research is superior to that of dedicated amateurs (especially in baseball), then he had better acquaint himself with what has already been done. Otherwise, he should write his stories with a little more humility.

This book differs from other sports analytics books in that it includes not only statistical analyses of in-game and off-season strategies, but also explanations of why players, coaches, or GMs pursue suboptimal strategies. Explanations come from a rich blend of behavioral and classical economics.

The book's voice is a little too goofy.

The authors present an almost textbook analysis of the hidden factors and microeconomics that influence human decision in sports. Their hypotheses are tested with a wealth of data extracted from the sports world including pitch choice and location from baseball records and a variety of data describing a long history of professional basketball games.

Of special interest to me was the absolute statistical proof that it is better to go for it on fourth down rather than punt. Why professional and collegiate coaches do not choose the optimal path is examined from the standpoint of incentives and risk adverseness, and I found the evidence compelling.

A unique way to look at human decisions, and an excellent read.

Overall this is an enjoyable and eye opening book on the subject of "mythical" advantages and biases in sports and whether or not they actually occur. There's some solid evidence here but I feel it could've been presented better to someone like me. Meaning, I really would've liked to see the step by step calculations they carried out to derive their numbers (sometimes statistics is just one giant lie and can be manipulated to meet a goal). Finally, I would've liked to have more charts and graphs. There were a few, but more would've better allowed a visual person like myself to quickly understand and reference what the authors were trying to point out. Other than that, this book was worth reading.

This is a fascinating book that is quite similar to the wonderful Freakonomics as applied to sports. Essays discuss Baseball, Basketball, Football, Golf, and other sports, along with more general topics like the home field advantage and momentum.

The fun part is reading the interesting and often non-intuitive conclusions that come out of the author's analysis using statistics and economic principles. And the book is very well-written so that both those with a technical background and those with no technical background at all can enjoy it. In fact, those with no interest in sports at all can still enjoy these essays.

Features numerous stories about observed behavior of sports and the impact and outcome of the games. Includes a story about a football team that never kicks the ball and soccer refs whose calls are influenced by the cheering of the crowd. Insightful. The reader has a scratchy voice.

As someone who uses statistical analytics (NHL) on a daily basis, I found most of what this book talks about less than revelatory. Every once in a while, a small detail was new and intriguing, but I found, for instance, multiple chapters on the nature of loss aversion and its consequences redundant. In the end, this is an interesting introduction to the idea that the common wisdom about how to win can be wrong and is worth re-examining, but this book remains basic at its heart.

This could have been a great book, perhaps as good as Freakonomics. But it isn't. It's boring. I wanted to put it down less than halfway through.

There's interesting analysis here, and I learned a few things from it. But the arguments are too often belabored, repeated, bludgeoned to death. And sometimes they're not completely convincing: the authors then sound like those academics who used to do much analysis to "prove" that curveballs don't curve. They are so sure that their models are perfect, that alternative explanations just don't exist. Statistics to them is truth.

So if you're interested in the subject, skim through the book quickly, skip the parts you find heavy going. You won't miss a thing.

While many people are comparing this book to Freakanomics and Moneyball, that really doesn't do this book justice. That description does indeed capture the spirit of Scorecasting, but this book goes far beyond what either of those books did. Moskowitz and Wertheim have truly crafted one of the most fascinating reads of our time. Sports enthuisast or not, this book is designed to completely turn your understanding of the sports world on its side. A must read. Go buy this book today!

It seems like enough people have said "Moneyball meets Freakonomics" that there isn't much to add on that front. The beauty of the book is it shows counter-intuitive aspects of sports. Who knew a sportswriter could get so quantitative, and a financial economist could get so readable?

Great for sports enthusiasts, and students of data mining and econometrics.

drags a little, but explains a lot. in my younger days, when i bet in vegas, it might have helped. now not so much. have to figure out how to apply what i learned about bias and self-delusion to my daily life.

This book covers a wide variety of sports statistics and situations. In depth, they discuss the true causes behind things like home-field advantage, whether or not there strike zone range really changes, and -- most interestingly! -- fourth-down decisions. I found this book not only educational but also a ton of fun. Highly recommended for any sports fan.

These supposedly objective analyzers of pro sports statistics make some wild assertions that only make sense because of their flawed data analysis. While it makes for an entertaining book (if you are a sports stats nut), almost none of the conclusions can be supported by the numbers provided unless you ignore aspects of playing that they don't mention and the writers' bias is so large that early on you'll want to argue with them about minor things, like calling Bill Belichick "the most highly regarded coach in the NFL" or the David Tyree one-handed helmet catch for a first down in Super Bowl XLII "the greatest play in Super Bowl history."

They make some bold assertions--like Dwight Howard not deserving his defensive MVP award or that pro football is biased in failing to hire black coaches. They show that stars do get favored treatment--but their definition of "star" is one that is subjective. And they love to talk about "loss aversion" as being a major factor in an athlete making choices. They support their biases with statistics but never give a full picture of what goes into the scenarios. It's like they are on a sports radio talk show, tossing out opinions supported by some carefully-selected numbers that will support their biases--but they never really getting to the heart of the stories.

This book would have been better as a long magazine piece in Sports Illustrated, where the writers could just state their stats and let others argue with them. Instead they try to explain their odd logic, often ignoring external variables. They also seem to work from the idea that past statistics can predict future behavior--which isn't true when combining 45 years of NFL history or 60 years of baseball numbers. Their conclusions can only give you a partial look at averages and never the whole picture.

Note that when the book first came out the early readers gave it 4- and 5-star reviews, but as time goes on the reviews are more negative. That's because the book has been overhyped and oversold. It's not anywhere near as good as early readers said it was, at times a bit boring and lacking the depth that is expected. In the end it will make some who love to argue numbers excited to get support for their own biases, but it still doesn't resolve any of the issues it raises.

This book claims to show hidden influences behind sports. For this to be successful, the arguments must be non-obvious (or they would hardly be "hidden") and new, and at least plausibly true. The book has at best mixed success.

Much of the material is pretty standard stuff. Any sports fan with any interest in analysis has likely seen discussions of how in American football icing a kicker doesn't work, or why coaches should go for it on fourth down more than they do. I know as little about basketball as it is possible for an American sports fan to, but I have read multiple analyses showing that players in foul trouble should be left in more than they are. Any book breathlessly claiming to reveal what is hidden would do well to avoid the commonplace.

Then there is the issue of the plausibility. There is a short section "How Competitive are Competitive Sports?: Why are the Pittsburgh Steelers so successful and the Pittsburgh Pirates so unsuccessful?" I was expecting a discussion of salary caps and revenue sharing and local versus national television deals, and perhaps the relative readiness of a player just out of college to contribute at the top professional level in football and baseball. What I got was much, much less: the observations the Pirates have a small payroll (with the briefest of nods to the absence of a salary cap in baseball) and that the long baseball season precludes a bad team from getting into the playoffs, much less winning the World Series. This is hopelessly inadequate even taking it on its own shallow terms. The question is why a small market like Pittsburgh can field a successful team in the NFL but not MLB. Taking the explanation at face value, they are saying that the Steelers just got lucky, but the long season prevents the Pirates from getting similarly lucky. This is beyond superficial. It is simply embarrassing, and the book's editor should be ashamed of letting this through.

The book's big ticket item is the explanation for home field advantage: why are home teams in various sports more likely to win than are visiting teams? They devote two large sections to this, which combine for about a quarter of the book.

They assign part of the advantage specifically in the NHL and NBA to scheduling, with visiting teams more likely than home teams to be forced to play games on consecutive days. But the general cause across sports (and predominant even in hockey and basketball), they argue, is crowd effects: not on the players, but on the referees. Furthermore, this effect is stronger when the crowd is larger or closer to the officials. Unfortunately, the argument is seriously flawed.

The argument that crowds don't affect the players is based on various discrete individual acts which can be separated out for analysis: free throws in basketball, field goal attempts in American football, penalty kicks in soccer, and so forth. They show that whether these take place at home or on the road make no difference. But it is a logical leap to conclude that this holds for collective team efforts. The obvious counter-example is crowd noise in American football. It is widely believed that by making noise, the fans can interfere with an opposing quarterback communicating with his teammates. It is a curious thing that the authors don't address this. There might be a good argument for generalizing individual effects to the team as a whole, but the authors don't make it. They merely assume it.

Their strongest work is the demonstration of crowd effects influencing officials' calls. I found both interesting and persuasive the evidence that a home plate umpire's strike zone expands and contracts depending on which side is at bat. But there is no support beyond handwaving that this fully explains home field advantage. We are assured that the authors have performed calculations showing that this is true, but no hint of what these calculations were. The book is intended for a general readership, but they could have put in a technical appendix, or at least a URL for a webpage showing their work.

The bigger problem is that the conclusion doesn't fit the facts. They mostly treat attendance as if it were a constant within a given sport. They acknowledge that bad teams tend to have low attendance, assure us that the math all works out, and drop the subject. But attendance is not a constant, even within a sport. Major league baseball games nowadays average over 30,000 per game. In the 1970s they averaged about half that. (And the umpires were further away from the crowd in those multi-purpose donut stadiums.) A hundred years ago they averaged around a fifth of the modern number. Modern minor league games average about a tenth the attendance of modern MLB games. If, as they authors argue, referee bias correlates to crowd size and referee bias is the source of home field advantage, it should follow that the home field advantage correlates with the average attendance. Do minor league games have a lower home field advantage? Heck if I know. The authors don't address it, or give any indication that they are aware that such a thing as minor league baseball even exists. But they do address home field advantage in baseball since 1903. They point out that it has remained constant. They seem to think that this supports their argument, apparently not knowing how much average attendance has changed across the decades. But it actually disproves the thesis.

They clearly are onto something. The discussion of referee bias is interesting and persuasive as far as it goes. But the claim that they have solved the problem of home field advantage simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

All in all this looks like the middle draft of a better book. This should have been the draft they sent off to friends and associates who could be trusted to read the manuscript with a skeptical eye and point out the holes. Instead they sent it off to the printers. The result is a book with some interesting material, but the unwary reader is likely to come away from it knowing less than he did going in.

An interesting way to explore this subject. It started out well, and I found the first few chapters very interesting. The rest got a little repetitive for me, but still, overall a very different and well done book.

I was listening to sports radio the other day and thinking about how the quality of commentary could be so much better. Usually it just boils down to: "He's not so good!" or "Yes he is!" Something like that. (Kudos to a number of ESPN podcasts in this regard, like Baseball Today, which does a far better job breaking things down.)

All radio talk show hosts ought to read this book. Bringing some numbers, or psychological principles, and other insights into the conversation would greatly enhance how sports can be enjoyed.

The writers had me at their opening anecdote of analyzing their school game and putting a bad player behind the plate instead of right field. Well done.

There are alot of good insights and analyses of different phenomena. I particularly liked the breakdown of 'icing' the kicker in football, and the value of the blocked shot in basketball.

There are some weaker topics. 'Tiger Woods is Human' was a wasted chapter. For numbers guys, extrapolating anything on the basis of a single case is weak. I also wasn't sold on dismissing the 'hot hand' theory. Maybe a hot hand is just a streak, which they don't dispute. If somebody is on a streak, you still take that into consideration I think.

Since one of the authors has an academic background, the notes at the back of the book don't slide. I did note, however, that some of the chapters are based on one article or source only. In that light, I'm not sure those chapters are very original, but they do help to popularize the information.

This book deserves a wide readership among those interested in sports, and raises the level of discussion. Slam dunk!

Warning! This book is NOT written in the style of a novel. It is a dry, chopped up, statistical record, analyzing certain parts of various sports.

I got this book since I have been a huge sports fan for many years. I was hoping that I would find something new, but everything in the book is pretty basic info that any real sports fan would know.

The book is about sports percentages and statistics in certain instances, like when an umpire is going to call a pitch a ball instead of a strike, or when a football coach would call for a punt or not.

If you are a part time sports fan, this may be interesting information about various sports and situations during a game that the public is not privy to, but most sportscasters fill in the public as part of their job!

One little part I found interesting: One coach of a high school never ever has had his team punt the football, as this goes against his percentages! And strangely enough, this team has a high winning percentage! Maybe the NFL should take note?!! If there is anything truly valuable or insightful in this book, I sure didn't find it!