Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game (2001)

In this lively and thought-provoking look at the numbers and the game, Jim Albert and Jay Bennett examine just what we learn, and just what we think we learn, from baseball statistics. The authors consider the key questions every serious fan obsesses about. By incorporating the seldom-used statistical techniques of probability, the authors come to some original and surprising conclusions: It turns out, for example, that the phenomenon of "streakiness" is measurable and can serve as a very useful predictor of performance. Conversely, they find that a lot of situational statistics (home versus away games, play on artificial turf versus grass) are, statistically speaking, little more than "noise".