Book Review: Scorecasting

I was sent a review copy of the book "Scorecasting" which is actually incredibly exciting for me. Why? I am a total numbers dork. Yep, your favorite surfer/golfer and all-around laid back chick is actually a major number cruncher. In fact, my day job is in advertising doing just that. I'll spare you the gory details there. Just know that I love to analyze everything.

Here's the description I was given:

“SCORECASTING: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won”, by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim digs into the behavioral dynamics and then delivers readers from the sports clichés and misstatements that have dominated for decades. Leave your anecdotal evidence at the door. Emotion means little here. With a combination of first-rate analysis and first-rate storytelling, Moskowitz (a University of Chicago Booth School of Business finance professor) and Wertheim (a writer at Sports Illustrated), assess the most deeply-rooted “truisms” that haunt the games we love.

Does defense truly win championships? Is there really such a thing as momentum in sports? Does icing the kicker work? Are the Chicago Cubs cursed? Can you really quantify the subjective aspects of sports, like officiating?

SCORECASTING confirms what has long been assumed. Consider:
* Officials are biased…but not for the reasons you think.
* The key to long-term focus and creative play: job security.
* Luck doesn’t make us smarter or dumber, only lucky or unlucky.
* There’s no I in team, but there is one in elite player. You better have one or more if you want a title.
* Using all four downs in football is still considered sports heresy. Wrongly, but everyone punts, right?
* Tiger Woods is, in fact, mortal—and for reasons having nothing to do with Thanksgiving of 2009."

I've just got going in this beauty and can't wait to get going in it. This book is the reason that I want to have an extra 4 hours a day to read. You can get your copy on Amazon.