Episode 1: Stats

by David G. Temple
January 21, 2013

In the inaugural episode of Stealing Home, we look at a topic near and dear to every baseball fan’s heart, the numbers. We learn them, we memorize them, we obsess over them, we compare them. They are the glue that holds baseball together throughout the years.

At the top of the show, we look at the incredible chase for the 1910 AL batting title between Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie, then talk some news with writer Mike Bates.

We start off talking to Sean Forman, founder of the best tool on the Internet, Baseball Reference, about how the site got started, how far it’s come, and where he sees it going in the future.

Regular stats are all well and good, but what about all that other stuff? Who’s keeping an eye on those outlying numbers? Well, Larry Granillo and Paul Lukas are, and we talk to both of them.

The ushering in of the new era of advanced statistics shouldn’t come as news to any baseball fan. Entire web sites are devoted to them, and baseball front offices are incorporating them like never before. Carson Cistulli, a writer and editor for stats-centric web site FanGraphs, talks a little about his history with this field, and how it links to his very prestigious degree.