cover -- copyright page -- title page -- Preface -- Contents -- I Baseball -- Sabermetrics: The Past, the Present, and the Future Jim Albert -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 Measuring Batting -- 1.3 Measuring Pitching -- 1.4 Measuring Fielding -- 1.5 New Measurements, New Data and Measures of Performance -- 1.6 Further Reading -- About the Author -- Surprising Streaks and Playoff Parity: Probability Problems in a Sports Context Rick Cleary -- 2.1 Problem 1: Rare Events -- Example 1: Four homers in a row -- Example 2: A streak of winless opponents -- 2.2 Problem 2: Playoff Series Length -- References -- About the Author -- Did Humidifying the Baseball Decrease the Number of Homers at Coors Field? Howard Penn -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Numbers -- 3.3 A Useful Statistic -- 3.4 Comparing the two sets of data -- 3.5 Summary of Conclusions -- 3.6 Exercises -- References -- About the Author -- Streaking: Finding the Probability for a Batting Streak Stanley Rothman and Quoc Le -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 A recursive function to calculate the probability of a player having a 56-game hitting streak at some point in a season -- 4.3 A non-recursive piecewise function, NR(n), to calculate the probability of a player having a 56-game hitting streak at some point in a season -- 4.4 The Error =

5.2 Colley Method -- 5.3 Massey Method -- 5.4 Weighting Methods -- 5.4.1 Linear weighting and the Colley method -- 5.4.2 Linear weighting in the Massey method -- 5.4.3 Alternative weightings - when life isn't linear -- 5.5 2009 Results -- 5.6 Concluding Remarks -- References -- About the Authors -- Down 4 with a Minute to Go G. Edgar Parker -- 6.1 Shoot the 3 -- 6.2 Shoot the "easy" two -- References -- About the Author -- Jump Shot Mathematics Howard Penn -- 7.1 Angle of elevation 60 degrees -- 7.2 Angle of elevation 30 degrees -- 7.3 Varying the distance -- 7.4 Varying the height -- References -- About the Author -- III Football -- How Deep Is Your Playbook? Tricia Muldoon Brown and Eric B. Kahn -- 8.1 Introduction -- 8.2 The Game of Football and Mathematics -- 8.3 Counting the Formations -- The 3-4 Defense -- The 4-3 Defense -- The Nickel Defense -- The Dime Defense -- 8.4 Conclusion -- About the Authors -- A Look at Overtime in the NFL Chris Jones -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Game Data -- 9.3 Analyzing the current system -- 9.4 An alternative proposal -- 9.5 Conclusion -- About the Author -- Extending the Colley Method to Generate Predictive Football Rankings R. Drew Pasteur -- References -- Appendix Top 25 ranking, at the end of the 2008 season, by this method -- About the Author -- When Perfect Isn't Good Enough: Retrodictive Rankingsin College Football R. Drew Pasteur -- References -- About the Author -- Appendix Compilation of various rankings -- IV Golf -- The Science of a Drive Douglas N. Arnold -- 12.1 The double-pendulum approximation of the swing -- 12.2 The impact of the club head and the ball -- 12.3 The ball's flight -- References -- About the Author -- Is Tiger Woods a Winner? Scott M. Berry -- G.H. Hardy's Golfing Adventure Roland Minton -- 14.1 Hardy's Golf Problem -- 14.2 Hardy's Analysis -- 14.3 Two Moments -- 14.4 Stroke Play.

14.5 Skins Game -- 14.6 Tournament Golf -- 14.7 Handicaps -- 14.8 Laurels to Hardy -- References -- About the Author -- Tigermetrics Roland Minton -- 15.1 How many putts do the pros make? -- 15.2 Is Tiger Woods the best putter on tour? -- 15.3 What is a reasonable system for ranking putters? -- 15.4 Who is the best at hitting irons from the fairway? -- 15.5 Is there a hidden flaw in Tiger's game? -- 15.6 Who is the best golfer overall? -- 15.7 What else can be learned? -- References -- About the Author -- V NASCAR -- Can Mathematics Make a Difference? Exploring Tire Troubles in NASCAR Cheryll E. Crowe -- 16.1 Introduction -- 16.2 What happened? -- 16.3 Race Tires vs. Street Tires -- 16.4 Mathematics is Making a Difference -- 16.5 Problem Resolved? Looking Towards the Future -- References -- About the Author -- VI Scheduling -- Scheduling a Tournament Dalibor Froncek -- 17.1 Some small tournaments -- 17.2 Tournaments for any even number of teams -- 17.3 Some more tournament properties -- References -- About the Author -- VII Soccer -- Bending a Soccer Ball with Math Tim Chartier -- References -- About the Author -- VIII Tennis -- Teaching Mathematics and Statistics Using Tennis Reza Noubary -- 19.1 Introduction -- 19.1.1 General -- 19.1.2 Specific -- 19.2 An Illustrative Example -- 19.3 Activities -- Activity 1: Bouncing Ball -- Activity 2: Applying Binomial Distribution, Matrices, Markov Chain, and Derivatives -- Activity 3: Calculations Based on Normal Distribution -- Activity 4: Constructing Confidence Intervals and Testing Hypotheses -- Activity 5: Applying Regression and Time Series for Prediction -- Activity 6: Research topics -- About the Author -- Percentage Play in Tennis G. Edgar Parker -- 20.1 Introduction -- 20.2 The Model -- 20.3 The Calculations -- 20.4 Big Shot Strategies -- 20.5 Analyzing Serve -- 20.6 Afterthoughts -- Reference.

About the Author -- IX Track and Field -- The Effects of Wind and Altitude in the 400m Sprintwith Various IAAF Track Geometries Vanessa Alday and Michael Frantz -- 21.1 Introduction and an Early Model -- 21.2 Quinn's Model -- 21.3 The Effects of Track Geometry on Running Performance -- 21.4 Computation of the Effect of Winds -- 21.5 Altitude and the Propulsive Force -- 21.6 Data Collected and Results from Quinn -- 21.7 Effects of Wind Direction on Overall Performance -- 21.8 Effects of Altitude and Air Density -- 21.9 The Equal Quadrant Track -- 21.10 Wind Effects on the Equal Quadrant Track -- 21.11 The Ancient Greek Olympiad Track -- 21.12 Summary of Results -- 21.13 Directions for Possible Future Work -- References -- About the Authors -- Mathematical Ranking of the Division III Track and Field Conferences Chris Fisette -- About the Author -- What is the Speed Limit for Men's 100 Meter Dash Reza Noubary -- 23.1 Introduction -- 23.2 Methods Based on Trend Analysis -- 23.3 Methods Based on Outstanding Values -- 23.3.1 Methods Based on Threshold Theory -- 23.3.2 Methods Based on Theory of Records -- 23.4 Ultimate Record -- References -- About the Author -- May the Best Team Win: Determining the Winner of a Cross Country Race Stephen Szydlik -- 24.1 Warming Up -- 24.2 Mile 1: Basic Terminology and Some Alternatives -- 24.3 Mile 2: Fairness Criteria and Other Scoring Methods -- 24.4 Mile 3: More Criteria and Alternative Scoring Methods -- 24.5 Mile 4: Some Social Choice Theory -- 24.6 Mile 5: Impossibility? -- 24.7 Warmdown: Some Concluding Remarks -- References -- About the Author -- Biomechanics of Running and Walking Anthony Tongen and Roshna E. Wunderlich -- 25.1 Introduction -- 25.2 Applications -- Numerically Calculating Impulse -- Running Model -- Walking Model -- 25.3 Conclusions -- References -- About the Authors -- About the Editor.