Baseball Hacks

Hacks 1–7: Introduction

More than most other sports, baseball is a game of numbers. Everything that happens can be measured, and people try to measure everything that can happen. They’ve done this for a long, long time. If you are so inclined, you can find detailed descriptions of games played when Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States. It is the sense of endless possibilities for exploration and discovery in this data, along with the sheer love of the game, that drives passionate fans to devote countless hours to the smallest details of baseball.

Many fans love the history of baseball and want to compare the top players of today to the top players of the past. Some fans like to look up specific games from many years ago, maybe looking for the play-by-play for Sandy Koufax’s perfect game or the box score for the first game their dad brought them to. Others wonder about how the game works, wanting to know if clutch hitters really exist, if sacrifice bunts are a good strategy, or if platooning batters is a good idea. Another group of fans just wants to know how their favorite players are doing this year, or they want to pick a winning fantasy team for next year.

This book will help you do these things, and it will tell you where to find the answers to questions like these. It will tell you where to find stats on past games, from wins and losses by teams all the way down to specific pitches. Many diligent fans from places like Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank work hard ...