Description
Book SynopsisRichard D. Cramer started analysing baseball statistics as a hobby in the mid-1960s, not long after graduating from Harvard and MIT. In When Big Data Was Small Cramer recounts his life and remarkable contributions to baseball knowledge.
Trade Review"
When Big Data Was Small is one of the most consequential books on baseball history and the evolution of thinking on the game."—Jason Schott,
Brooklyn Digest“Dick was one of a handful of people back in the 1970s who started the statistical revolution in baseball . . . in his spare time. He was also a respected scientist with a distinguished career, and he played a little jazz on the side. This book chronicles his life, with its ups and downs, both professional and personal, in an honest and unassuming way. It is an interesting journey, with the last chapter yet to be written.”—Pete Palmer, coauthor of
The Hidden Game of Baseball: A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Its StatisticsTable of ContentsContents
Foreword by John Thorn
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Setting the Stage
2. Baseball and Science Surface
3. College
4. Graduate School and the 1960s Computer
5. Industrial Synthetic Chemist
6. Harvard’s Research Computer
7. Computer-Aided Drug Discovery
8. Sabermetrics’ Infancy
9. Scientific Recognition
10. Twists of Fate
11. Birth of STATS Inc.
12. White Sox and Yankees
13. Scientific Career Transition
14. Rebirth of STATS Inc.
15. Comparative Molecular Field Analysis
16. STATS Soars
17. Cheerlessness and Lyme Disease
19. The Rise and Fall of TRPS
19. Repudiated by STATS
20. Tidying Up
21. In My Humble Opinion
22. Summing Up
Appendix: Bamberg Mathematical Analysis of Baseball
Notes
Bibliography
Index
