Scorecasting

Title: Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won
Authors: Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
Genre: Popular Science
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The Freakonomics of sports.  Moskowitz and Wertheim dive into data on every major sport to investigate things like: Does defense win championships? Where does home field advantage come from? Does loss aversion result in more losses?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book, and if you're a sports fan and like numbers you should definitely read it.  I especially enjoyed the section on home field advantage, as it's something that I've wondered about for a long time.  My only complaint is that the whole "why everything you thought was true is wrong" is way overplayed, in my opinion.  Clearly, telling us that things we think are true really are wrong is a good way to catch attention and sell books.  I just think it was a bit overbearing in this book.  That being said, as an economist and numbers guys, I can't complain about the analysis nor the conclusions, and found nearly every chapter interesting.
Disclaimer: None.