Earnshaw Cook

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Earnshaw Cook (died 1987) was an early researcher and proponent of sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball through statistical means.

A member of the Princeton University class of 1921, Cook was an engineer specializing in metallurgy.[1] He spent most of his working life at the American Brake Shoe Co. in Mahwah, New Jersey, later consulting on the Manhattan Project before retiring from the industry 1945.[1] In the 1950s and 1960s, Cook worked as a mechanical engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he published several academic papers.[2] Cook set about his statistical studies with the goal of proving that Ty Cobb, holder of the highest career batting average at .366, was better than Babe Ruth, the premier power hitter of the first half of the 20th century.[1] Additionally Cook sought to understand strategical issues such as batting order and relief pitching, rather than accept the traditional strategies of baseball.[3] Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford learned of Cook's work and interviewed him for the lead story of a 1964 issue with the title "Baseball is Played All Wrong".[4] Using tools of the time, such as a slide rule and Friden STW mechanical calculator, Earnshaw Cook published the culmination of his work, Percentage Baseball (MIT Press), in 1964.[5] Percentage Baseball was the first book of baseball statistics studies to gain national media attention.[6] Though Cook received some support from Los Angeles Dodgers manager Walter Alston and Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck, most baseball executives and managers rejected Cook's mathematical approach and academic language.[7] He was also criticized for lax mathematical models and inadequate numerical evidence by statisticians, such as George Lindsey (himself a baseball statistician), who advised that it be "kept out of the sight of students of the theory of probability."[8] Modern author Michael Lewis describes Cook's prose as "crafted to alienate [baseball statistics] converts."[9] Among Cook's most bold assertions was that, utilizing his strategies, a team could gain up to 250 runs a season, a number which today's methods would indicate is "absurd".[7] Years later, sabermetrician Pete Palmer and sports historian John Thorn asserted that their computer simulations using Cook's lineup modifications actually slightly reduce the number of runs a team scored.[10] Bill James would later write in his 1981 Baseball Abstract that "Cook knew everything about statistics and nothing at all about baseball--and for that reasons, all of his answers are wrong, all of his methods useless."[11] Earnshaw Cook also dismissed the effects of player handedness (thusly, condemning the use of the platoon system), which even contemporary studies pointed out to be erroneous.[12] Cook did, however, uncover several important pieces of information which are now accepted as common knowledge in modern sabermetrics, such as the inefficiency of the sacrifice bunt.[13] More importantly, the material generated discussion on statistical analysis in baseball and introduced many baseball fans to objective research.[12][14]

Cook's primary appeal was to young mathematically inclined baseball fans. His work influenced baseball personnel such as Tal Smith, Ewing Kauffman and Davey Johnson, as well as future sabermetricians like Palmer.[15] In 1971, Waverly Press published his follow-up to Percentage Baseball titled Percentage Baseball and the Computer. Philip Roth based the character of the kid genius baseball coach Isaac Ellis in The Great American Novel on Cook.[16][17] Cook's slide rule, which he used during his research for Percentage Baseball, was donated upon request to the Baseball Hall of Fame.[18] Earnshaw Cook died of a heart attack in 1987.[18]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Schwarz, Alan (2004). The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, p. 76. ISBN 0312322224. Retrieved on 2008-01-20. 
  2. ^ Henshaw, John M. (2006). Does Measurement Measure Up?: How Numbers Reveal and Conceal the Truth. Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 73. ISBN 080188375X. 
  3. ^ Schwarz, p. 72.
  4. ^ Deford, Frank (1964-03-23). "Baseball Is Played All Wrong". Sports Illustrated 20 (12): 14–17. 
  5. ^ Schwarz, p. 78.
  6. ^ Albert, James; Jay M. Bennett (2001). Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game. Springer, p. 170-171. ISBN 0387988165. 
  7. ^ a b Schwarz, pp. 77-78.
  8. ^ Lindsey, George (Sep. - Oct. 1968). "The Analysts' Bookshelf: Review - Percentage Baseball". Operations Research 16 (5): pp. 1088–1089. 
  9. ^ Lewis, Michael (2003). Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 71. ISBN 0393057658. 
  10. ^ Dierker, Larry (2007). My Team: Choosing My Dream Team from My Forty Years in Baseball. Simon & Schuster, pp. 228-229. ISBN 0743275144. 
  11. ^ Bill James as quoted by Lederer, Rich (2004-08-02). Abstracts From The Abstracts: Part Five: 1981 Baseball Abstract. Baseball Analysts. Retrieved on 2008-01-20.
  12. ^ a b Hooke, Robert (June 1967). "Book Review - Percentage Baseball". Journal of the American Statistical Association 62 (318): pp. 688–690. 
  13. ^ Puerzer, Richard J. (2002). "From Scientific Baseball to Sabermetrics: Professional Baseball as a Reflection of Engineering and Management in Society", in William M. Simons, Alvin L. Hall: The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2001. McFarland & Company, p. 314. ISBN 0786413573. 
  14. ^ Schwarz, p. 81.
  15. ^ Schwarz, pp. 82-83.
  16. ^ Surowiecki, James. "The Buffett of Baseball", The New Yorker, 2002-09-23. Retrieved on 2008-01-20. 
  17. ^ Thompson, Bob. "Many faces of Philip Roth", The Montana Standard, 2006-11-18. Retrieved on 2008-01-20. 
  18. ^ a b Schwarz, p. 83.
Persondata
NAME Earnshaw Cook
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Early sabermetrics researcher
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH