An illuminating mix for sports fans and math buffs looking to hone their skills.
Entertaining deconstruction of the mathematics of sports.
To enjoy this book, readers need only a basic knowledge of high school math, even when Barrow (Mathematical Sciences/Cambridge Univ.; The Book of Universes: Exploring the Limits of the Cosmos, 2011, etc.) discusses more complicated subjects such as probabilities. He shows how the relationship between time and distance determines the best strategy for kicking the ball in rugby or soccer. Turning to track and field, Barrow speculates that in order to top his world-record 100-meter time, sprinter Usain Bolt could reduce his reaction time, but an even better bet would be to race on a high-altitude track in Mexico City while getting an assist from a high tailwind. The author explains why runners, given a choice, don't select either the inside position on a circular track, even though it is the shortest distance, or the outside, with its gentler curve, because they want to gauge the speed of the runners on either side. Barrow also investigates Cold War politics to discover why female world records in Olympic track and field competitions have remained static in recent years. The answer can be found in the practices of the East German Stasi, who systematically dosed their athletes with anabolic steroids. While random testing is now routine for Olympic athletes, there is no random testing of U.S. baseball players, despite evidence of steroid use. The author explains that existing tests are not considered to be sufficiently precise. Using hypothetical examples, Barrow introduces the fundamentals of statistics and the application of Bayes' theorem to conditional probabilities, and he includes discussions of skydiving, rowing, triathlons and water polo, among other athletic endeavors.
An illuminating mix for sports fans and math buffs looking to hone their skills.Pub Date: June 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-393-06341-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It's where on the sandlot you, as a kid, first essayed the national pastime that determines your lot in life, according to the comic proponents of the Ryan Theory of Adolescent Development in American Males. The Ryans, päre et fils, can convince any real American male that position is of even more consequence in baseball than it is in the Kamasutra. Baseball sets character more firmly than nature or nurture. Better than Costello coached by Abbott, the kids know who's on first. First base is occupied by a tall athlete who, in manhood, seethes because he didn't pitch. On the pitcher's mound is the best-looking lad (since the audience will focus mostly on him) who also happens to be the coach's kid. The center fielder ``will never lose the aura of space about him.'' Look out for the shortstop, and don't ask about the left fielder. The incumbents in each of the nine positions are described in terms of raw ingredients, the game's imprint, and the finished product—which, the Ryans claim, explains a lot about the state of the nation. Benedict Arnold never played, but Nathan Hale, we are told, played second. Nonplayers, substitutes, and batboys (who are there to be killed by flung bats) are not neglected, and the Ryans offer a learned discussion of the lasting importance of one's place in the batting order. Full of what passes for statistics and references to bogus studies (surely derived from too much time spent in sports bars during the baseball strike), the text will perfectly suit the True American Guy, who, after all, is (1) a great ball player, and (2) a Guy with a great sense of humor. Gender-specific and possibly dangerous to right fielders, the light text will easily tickle the fans just in time for another season,
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-4661-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
An astute examination of how baseball emerged as the national pastime by fostering a pastoral mythology that remained unchallenged until the early 1950s. White (Law and History/Univ.. of Virginia; Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1993) argues that ``baseball's past history was far more complex, and far less heroic, than romanticized treatments of the game might suggest.'' Hardly news, but as he so meticulously demonstrates, while baseball promoted its ``anachronistic dimensions'' as a rural, fresh-air sport played by apple-cheeked youths, it was able to do so, in part, by violating anti-trust laws, by implementing such unfair labor practices as the reserve clause, and by restricting its talent pool according to race. The struggle to maintain the myth began to fail in the postwar era. Owners followed the demographic shift westward, thus dashing nostalgic hometown ties for fans of teams like the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. At about the same time, the weakening of the reserve clause, the ``new labor relations atmosphere,'' and the integration of the game forced baseball to surrender the ``special qualities'' that had allowed it to appear untouched by time. The author's delineation of the business aspects of the game are a bit dry and too involved, but things liven up when he looks at the gambling and cheating that were a part of the game early in the century, and when he examines the growth and economic importance of night baseball and of radio and TV broadcasts. He also surveys the great baseball writers, such as Paul Gallico and Damon Runyan, and the famed announcers, including Bob Prince and Jimmy Dudley. He has some fresh insights into the game's tentative acceptance of ethnic ballplayers such as Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg. Baseball cognoscenti will find plenty to chew on here. (24 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-691-03488-5
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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