Dayn Perry

Dayn Perry (born 1972) is an author and baseball journalist. He was also a special consultant for the San Diego Padres from 2001–2003.^[1]

Journalism

His journalism can be found on FanGraphs online journal NotGraphs.^[2] He formerly published with ESPN, BaseballProspectus.com and at Foxsports.com.^[3] He has also contributed articles to Washington Monthly, ESPN Magazine, The Miami Herald, The Montreal Gazette, Reason, and The New York Sun.

ESPN and Sportstalk

Perry began his sportswriting career with sportstalk.com as an intern. When the site was bought out by ESPN, he moved along with the website and continued his writing with ESPN.^[1]

Baseball Prospectus

At Baseball Prospectus he wrote a regular "Can of Corn" column from July 2003^[4] to July 2008.^[5] With Baseball Prospectus, in addition to his regular column, Perry contributed to many of the annual books as well as to Baseball Between the Numbers (ISBN 0465005470).

Fox Sports

Dayn joined Foxsports.com as a frequent contributor in 2002 and would later become one of Fox Sports senior baseball writers (or "experts," along with Ken Rosenthal.)^[6] He continued to contribute to Fox Sports in a staff that included Rosenthal, Jon Paul Morosi, Tracy Ringolsby and Bob Klapisch until July 2011.^[7]

NotGraphs

Perry joined NotGraphs in December 2010.^[8] Asked about the reasons for moving to NotGraphs full-time he said that he was "tired of straight analysis" and wanted a place to exercise his "boundless" if at times "awful" sense of humor, for the "unbridled whimsy."^[9] He is part of a staff that also includes Carson Cistulli, Jeremy Blachman and Navin Vaswani.

His first full length article for NotGraphs was entitled "The Power and Glory of Baseball Advertising" a playful look at "baseball’s place in the culture of advertising"^[10] which was followed by a piece about Repeal Day^[11] and then "Towards a Better Journalism" which asked "how we can improve your reading experience, refashion baseball journalism and vastly simplify the lives of our heroic and harried beat writers?"^[12] Continuing in this vein Perry's writing at NotGraphs often mixes comedy and sociology.^{[11][13][14][15][16]} He also provides autobiographical writing,^[17] art criticism,^[18] photo essays,^[19] and poetry.^[20]

CBS Sports

In February 2012, Perry agreed to join CBSSports.com as a writer for the Eye on Baseball blog while continuing to contribute to NotGraphs.

Publishing

Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports' Eye on Baseball and the author of three books, now—one of them serviceable and one of them, against all odds, something more than serviceable^[21]

Winners

Perry published his first book Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think) in 2006. Using a numbers-oriented approach this book attempts to show how successful baseball organizations become what they are and what they do to remain successful. In his bookreview The Hardball Times Dan Fox described the book as "well-written" on a "great topic" applauding Dayn for his "application of performance analysis to the strategies and tactics used over the past quarter century" and "brief portraits of some of the more interesting players to have put on a uniform during that time."^[23] Then General Manager Kevin Towers called it "a lively narrative that blends astute analysis with clever storytelling"^[24] but Perry himself says its "objectively not a good book" (while admitting that he's his "own worst critic."^[25])

Reggie Jackson

Perry published his second book Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October in 2010. This book, a biography of Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson, covers Jackson's life from childhood to the major leagues. Steve Lombardi of waswatching.com called it "remarkably well researched" and "very entertaining"^[26] and Steve Treder of The Hardball Times calls it a "serious and thoughtful volumes displaying highly impressive research," "handsomely presented, top-shelf physical product, with no stinting on any of the extras: wonderful photos aplenty, richly detailed endnotes and indeces" but notes that "Jackson, while an unquestionably important figure in baseball history, isn’t the sort of book-length protagonist for whom the reader is inclined to root" and that the "strict focus on Jackson alone allows for little examination of whatever the wider implications of his career might be."^[27]

Personal life

Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelors in English and masters in Creative Writing from Mississippi College.^[28] He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals."

Dayn is the uncle of Kimberly, Neil, and Reid Perry, siblings and members of The Band Perry.

Works

• Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think). New York: Wiley, 2006. ISBN 0-471-72174-3.
• Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October. New York: William Morrow, 2010. ISBN 0-06-156238-6.

External links

Selected Baseball Writing

• How the Phillies Pulled it Off (November 2008)
• A Brief Introduction (December 2010)
• The Stages of Wainwright Grief (February 2011)
• Satchel Paige could have been best ever (April, 2011)
• Poem: The Sad Baseball Frog (November 2011)

Interviews

• March, 2006 – Interview (transcript) with Rich Lederer, Baseball Analysts
• December, 2008 – Interview (transcript) with Tyler Hissey, Scout.com
• May, 2010 – Interview (transcript) with Alex Belth, Bronx Banter
• January, 2011 – Interview with Carson Cistulli, FanGraphs Audio

References