Title: A thinking person's guide to Baseball
Product review: This statistical treatise is one of the best early books on the statistical analysis of baseball - despite some time-worn flaws. Authors Rod Thorn and Pete Palmer wrote this book in 1983, as the home computer was coming in, and following on the heels of statistical guru Bill James. Unlike most sportswriters and ice-age baseball men, the authors understood why on-base-percentage and slugging percentage are keys while batting average means little. The authors examine the statistics of several key players, and show us what to look for. I mention flaws because their linear weights system of measuring players is rather flawed - Roy Smalley Jr. was NOT one of the top 100 players of all time. Despite some flaws in methodology, the authors were on the right track, and improved with their TOTAL BASEBALL books that followed.Readers of this book should also look at just about anything written by Bill James.
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