Statistics in Sports: Special Section
Reporting and analysis of sports and sporting activities involves the use of quantitative reasoning by more Americans than in any other aspect of everyday life. Batting averages, team standings, and world records are concepts in such common use that they have influenced even our everyday language (e.g., “missed the mark,” “world class,” “fumbled the ball”). Sporting and recreational competition, once considered to be primarily a masculine endeavor, has lost much of its gender-based identity as women have become more involved as both participants and spectators. Sporting issues now involve all corners of our culture. American sports reporting is heavily quantitative. Indeed, much of spectator enjoyment of our “national pastime,” baseball, is derived from interpretations of the plethora of statistics that have evolved to describe the game. Often a final score is not as important as the number of hits (especially when there are few) or whether a player is “four for four.” Baseball statistics have a certain simplicity that makes them not only easy to compute, but also easy to discuss and interpret. Indeed, it has been argued that the relative lack of success of soccer as an American sport is that there are few statistical descriptions of a game. Of course, it can also be argued that statistical analyses are a partial offset to the boredom of watching a game with little continuous action. Americans grow up with batting averages, runs batted in, and earned run averages. These are the “sufficient statistics” of baseball; as the seasons change, we switch to yards per carry (football) and free throw percentage (basketball). Sports records are widely regarded as measures of achievement, perhaps even more so than school grades or professional income. Two opportunities exist for exploiting this fascination. On one hand, collection and interpretation of data may assist in the management of the competition. On the simple level, a baseball coach might want to know how his batter has fared against left-handed pitching; on a more complex level, a football coach might want to evaluate his choice to retain only two quarterbpcks on his squad, thus risking weakening his offense if injuries occur. Rules makers are certainly interested in situations that have profound effect on outcome. In professional sports, team owners and players should have bases for fair salary negotiations. The popularity of statistical analysis of sports offers another opportunity-education of spectators, particularly young people, in the principles of sound statistical reasoning. People who are otherwise averse to quantitative reasoning will often become expert analysts when the subject being analyzed is of interest to them. A statistical argument presented in a context of one’s experience is far more likely to be retained than one presented in the context of a hypothetical situation. The statistical literature has seen many enlightening and entertaining analyses of sports. To date, however, these have appeared within journals and magazines primarily directed toward the statistics professional. Thus the articles reach the general public only through the statistics audience, if at all. The readership of these articles has been restricted by limited distribution of the publication. The general public, even persons engaged in scientific or management activities that use statistics, often have a rather narrow view of the professional role of a statistician. Especially in sports, a statistician is often seen as a tabulator of data and less often as an interpreter of data. The ASA Section on Statistics in Sports was organized in 1992. Its first formal activity was the presentation of several invited and contributed paper sessions at the annual meeting; many of the papers were subsequently published in the first proceedings volume of the new section. I was honored to be the first publications officer of the new section. I was just then completing my term as review editor of JASA. One of the responsibilities of the review editor is the recruitment of collections of papers, called Special Sections, dealing with a central topic. With my interest in sports statistics and in the special section, I, perhaps immodestly, named myself editor of a possible special JASA section on the statistics of sports. I advertised in Amstat News and by word of mouth, requesting that abstracts be sent to me so that I could guide the preparation of papers. I was astounded to receive 45 abstracts-far beyond my capacity to provide individual guidance. I thus gave general guidance and set a deadline for submission. I received 28 complete papers not only from America, but also from around the world. With the enthusiastic and able assistance of 6 associate editors and 45 referees, we began the reviewing process. Throughout the process, the foremost criterion was the maintenance of JASA editorial standards. The eight outstanding papers in this section are the result of this effort. You will find that they have a range of technical level; some might properly appear in either of the two traditional JASA sections. All of them provide entertaining applications of statistical theory and method, and all leave open questions for further inquiry.