Many argue it’s the reason the curse was finally reversed. A few say it has revolutionized the game. “Sabermetrics” — the statistical analysis of baseball data — pervades sports conversation today. But how many people are aware that analytical statistics can make powerful contributions to other sports, like say, pingpong? Well, for a start there are the more than 100 statisticians and sports enthusiasts — in this case, often one and the same — who came together at the Harvard University Science Center Sept. 29 for the first “New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports” (NESSIS).
As Mark Glickman, a visiting associate professor of statistics at Harvard and co-founder of the event, pointed out in his welcoming speech, the timing for the symposium could not have been better. Talk of a winning season for the Celtics pervades local sports shows. The Patriots stand undefeated three Sundays (and one Monday) into their schedule. And Red Sox fans are celebrating their newly clinched AL East title.
Still, there was plenty to talk about besides Boston’s teams: Are NFL coaches acting rationally when choosing an equal number of passing and running plays? Is there evidence for racial discrimination among NBA referees? What is the fairest ranking system for college football and hockey? How can we best quantify fielding ability in baseball? Like more traditional fields of academic research, the answers to these questions posed at NESSIS will continually evolve.
