UMass Lowell - CyberEd
92.419 Computer Algebra with Mathematica
Kenneth M. Levasseur
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, MA 01854

The Decline of 0.400 Hitters

Subject

Statistics

Topic

Baseball fans tend to think that absence of a 0.400 hitter in major league baseball since 1941 is an indication that baseball is in decline. Stephen Jay Gould [1] makes an excellent case for the opposite view. He argues that the level of play has increased toward an optimal level and simply squeezed the standard deviation in averages.

Reference(s)

Gould, Stephen Jay, Full House: The spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin, Harmony Books, 1996.
Baseball Research Journal, published by SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research.

Project Idea(s)

An analysis of some other baseball statistics or statistics from other sports may lead to similar conclusions those of Gould. Some similar studies have been done by members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

An article in the Boston Globe in March 1997 hinted that, considering parity in the NBA, the 1996-97 Celtics may very well be among the worst teams in history (relative to the league in a given year). This could be a topic for study.

Ideas outside sports, particularly in the biological sciences would be possible if you already have some expertise in that area.

Prerequisite Mathematics

Elementary Statistics

Required Programming Level

Minimal. If statistics packages are learned and utilized, manipulation of data files would would seem to be the trickiest part of the programming.

Key Words

statistics, baseball, sports, evolution

Reviewer

K. M. Levasseur (Kenneth_Levasseur@uml.edu)