Anthology Of Statistics In Sports

The worlds of sports fans and statisticians collide in this interesting and accessible collection of previously published articles on the use of statistics to analyze sports, that the editors have thoughtfully culled from a variety of American Statistical Association (ASA) publications. Heavily weighted in the areas of competition (rating players and teams, evaluating strategies for victory), the articles vary in mathematical complexity, but most will be accessible to readers with a general knowledge of statistics. Newly written material from the editors and other notable contributors introduces each section of the book, and a chapter with suggestions on using the articles in the classroom is included.This book will appeal to statisticians with an interest in sports who could use the chapters as engaging classroom examples. Sports fans with some understanding of statistics also will find the book of interest, especially the chapters written at a modest mathematical level.

Jim Albert is a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Bowling Green State University. His research interests include Bayesian inference and model selection for generalized linear models, statistical education, and the application of statistical methods to sports. He is a Fellow of the ASA and is a member of the Mathematical Association of America. Jay Bennett is a Principal Scientist with Telcordia Technologies and has experience in traffic engineering, network reliability, and software reliability. His research interests include quality of service metrics and applications of statistical methods to sports and entertainment. He is a Fellow of the ASA and is active in the ASA Section on Statistics in Sports. James J. Cochran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing and Analysis at Louisiana Tech University. His research interests include statistical methods (particularly general linear models), statistical learning, and stochastic combinatorial optimization. He is a past President of the ASA Section on Statistics in Sports and the current President of the INFORMS Section on OR in Sports.