OT: Sports/Numbers Book Recommendations?

[shrink]

For my Christmas present to me, I bought five books that, to my real life friends, only reinforce their opinion that I'm a nerd. Hey - its not necessarily the wrong opinion. I've wanted some of these books for a while, or I've read excerpts that were intriguing. they were:

Basketball on Paper -- Dean Oliver
The Wages of Wins -- Berri
Book of Basketball -- Bill Simmons (hey, he chose Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point) to write the forward!)
Between the Numbers -- Baseball Prospectus (salary cap, market size, etc)
Baseball Economist -- Bradbury

Anyway, some of these books you've probably heard of - others maybe not. What I was wondering is whether there are other similar, "shrink-like" books out there that you'd recommend. I realize we're kind of a small market niche, so I appreciate the chance to ask people who are interested in the numbers.

Any suggestions? Classics I'm missing? Something from Bill James, perhaps?

[Basti]

For my Christmas present to me, I bought five books that, to my real life friends, only reinforce their opinion that I'm a nerd.

well I guess your e-friends consider you to be a nerd too

just kidding, I wonder what this board (and the Trade & Transaction board) would be without your contributions.

[shrink]

For my Christmas present to me, I bought five books that, to my real life friends, only reinforce their opinion that I'm a nerd.

well I guess your e-friends consider you to be a nerd too :D

just kidding, I wonder what this board (and the Trade & Transaction board) would be without your contributions.

LOL! As I've gotten older, I've come to embrace my inner-nerd -- its kind of outer now.

[Slum_Dillinger]

You could probably write your own book at this point.

The critically acclaimed; "Dolla, Dolla, Bill Y'all" by Shrink E. Dink

[cpfsf]

Knicks fans have found another use for crap.

[the_bruce]

I came in here thinking shrink gambles because the title said sports book.

Disappointed!

Not sure if theres many solid sporting books I could reccomend for you. I did read the business of sports, which was ok if memory serves me. Also, read a really good book on sporting infrastructure dealing with the actual venues and revenue from stadiums/finance, but can't for the life of me remember what the title was or what it was called.

[the_bruce]

Shrink,

Another line of thought you may want to take is the TV contracts/revenue and/or media advertising/licensing deals.

There's tons to know about that side of the business and how it affects the bottom line. I doubt there's a book dedicated to sports media in this way, so you'd need to dig through several resources to put the picture together.

[shrink]

Good ideas. Part of the reason I bought the books on baseball is because that sport has a tendency to attract more economists. They address several issues like the media and stadium finance, and I've already leafed through some articles in the NBA books (didn't know the NBA's contract with ESPN, TNT etc is worth $4.6 billion from 2002-2009, all shared equally. Thank you, Michael Jordan!). But these are only bits of these books, and I would probably enjoy reading an entire book, so I appreciate your ideas.

[ChazzleDazzle]

The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics by Alan Schwartz and Peter Gammons is pretty good, as is Statistical Thinking in Sports (Jim Albert is the Editor--this one's a collection of papers. Pretty interesting though.)

You mentioned Tipping above, so I assume you've looked at Malcolm Gladwell's stuff. Outliers is great though, if you haven't read that one yet...

There's also a book called Mathletics that I've been meaning to pick up but haven't read yet. I think it may get at some of what you're looking for though.

[Iommi]

I enjoyed the Book of Basketball; while Simmons isn't always spot on, he's a very passionate fan of basketball, and he put so much into that book.

Can't stand Malcom Gladwell. The man makes vague, sweeping observations, then doesn't have the stones to make governing theses, or any sort of statements off them. The book Outliers tells you the following things (among others): Hard work is good. Culture is good. Helping others? Good. Breaking some new ground there, Gladwell.

http://deadspin.com/5256118/the-sportsw ... ping-point

The good folks at Deadspin, the best sports blog ever, do a better job of poking holes in Gladwell then I ever could.

As far as suggestions go:

Tipoff: How the 1984 NBA draft Changed Basketball Forever by Filip Bondy

Why Fantasy Football Matters (And Our Lives do not) by Erik Barmack and Max Handelman

The Dark Side of the Game by Tim Green

The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam

I thought we were going to be able to discuss favorable lines in this thread, too... For the record I love Nate Diaz at +250 over Gray Maynard.

[horaceworthy]

I enjoyed the Book of Basketball, although the section on KG, some of the digs directed towards KG, and a litany mistakes that can't be written off as typos nearly ruined it for me. The last chapter with Walton made up for most of it, though.

[Jaxbeast]

I just finished The Book of Basketball, and I thought it was pretty decent even though most of the topics somehow end up talking about the Celtics (might just be me). I read Moneyball and thats a pretty decent book, though its more of a story and not much into the numbers part of baseball.

[shrink]

I just finished The Book of Basketball, and I thought it was pretty decent even though most of the topics somehow end up talking about the Celtics (might just be me). I read Moneyball and thats a pretty decent book, though its more of a story and not much into the numbers part of baseball.

I enjoyed Moneyball as well. I was constructing giant spreadsheets in fantasy sports at the time, and some of his thinking on economics (although I'm not sure he calls it that without a capital "E") was interesting. As a Twins fan, its interesting to see teams that do more with less.