In Part 1 of this blog, I talked about the role games play in exciting children about math. In his NYT article, Professor Ellenberg states. “The new games are difficult, but also, for many kids, kind of addictive. Which means they also teach sitzfleisch, the ability to focus on a complicated skill for the length …
The ideas in this Blog came from an article written on 07/25/2014 for the NYT by Jordan Ellenberg, a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, and the author of the book “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.” Professor Ellenberg began his article by asking the question many parents have …
The idea for this posting came about after I stumbled upon the “Hall of 100” on the ESPN website. This list was published on December 4, 2012. ESPN summoned sports writers, and on-air personalities to compile a list of the top 100 baseball players of All-Time. They were given a list of more than 300 …
The first feat is ending a season with at least 502 plate appearances and a batting average BA ≥ .400. The second feat is accomplishing baseball’s Triple Crown by leading their league in HR, RBI and BA. This posting and the following posting will examine the chances of Miguel Cabrera achieving both these feats in 2013. …
On April 22, 2013, I was invited to speak at Amity Regional HS in CT. Unlike some other trips this was a short excursion of 30 minutes from my house. I was told that I would be talking to an AP Statistics Class, other math students and teachers. I wanted to choose a statistics topic …
After saying goodbye and thanking Rico Brogna for his talk on scouting to my class, I picked up my wife and we were off to West Point. I was scheduled to give a talk on batting streaks to Father Costa’s sabermetrics class the next day at 7:30 AM. Father Costa is a rare combination. He …
In the fall of 2012, I was scheduled to teach three courses which included 2 sections of biostatistics and 1 of Sandlot Stats: Learning Statistics with Baseball. You probably think the idea for my next baseball posting came from my baseball and statistics course. If you guessed that you would be wrong. The idea actually …
One of the many contributions of Bill James to the field of sabermetrics was his Pythagorean Theorem for baseball. The theorem states that the ratio of a team’s wins to losses is equal to the square of the ratio of the team’s runs scored to the team’s runs allowed. The equation is (Wins / Losses) …
In teaching my Baseball and Statistics course at Quinnipiac University, besides using my bookSandlot Stats,I require my students to read the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis. The book describes how Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics general manager, navigated his team through the 2002 season. In that season, Oakland finished first in the American League West with a …