1. Introduction

Abstract

1.1 The ASA Section on Statistics in Sports (SIS)The 1992 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) saw the creation of a new section of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Joining the host of traditional areas of statistics such as Biometrics, Survey Research Methods, and Physical and Engineering Sciences was the Section on Statistics in Sports (SIS). As stated in its charter, the section is dedicated to promoting high professional standards in the application of statistics to sports and fostering statistical education in sports both within and outside the ASA.Statisticians worked on sports statistics long before the founding of SIS. Not surprisingly, some of the earliest sports statistics pieces in the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA) were about baseball and appeared in the 1950s. One of the first papers was Frederick Mosteller's 1952 analysis of the World Series (JASA, 47 (1952), pp. 355–380). Through the years, Mosteller has continued his statistical research in baseball as well as other sports. Fittingly, his 1997 paper “Lessons from Sports Statistics” (The American Statistician, 51–4 (1997), pp. 305–310) is included in this volume (Chapter 32) and provides a spirited example of the curiosity and imagination behind all of the works in this volume.Just as the nation's sporting interests broadened beyond baseball in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, so did the topics of research in sports statistics. Football, basketball, golf, tennis, ice hockey, and track and field were now being addressed (sometimes very passionately). Perhaps no question has been so fiercely debated as the existence of the “hot hand” in basketball. The basketball section (Part III) of this volume provides some examples of this debate, which remains entertainingly unresolved.Until the creation of SIS, research on sports statistics had to be presented and published in areas to which it was only tangentially related—one 1984 paper published in this volume (Chapter 12) was presented at the JSM under the auspices of the Social Statistics Section since it had no other home. The continued fervent interest in sports statistics finally led to the creation of SIS in the 1990s. Since its creation, the section has provided a forum for the presentation of research at the JSM. This in turn has created an explosion of sports statistics papers in ASA publications as well as an annual volume of proceedings from the JSM (published by the section). The September 1994 issue of JASA devoted a section exclusively to sports statistics. The American Statistician typically has a sports statistics paper in each issue. Chance often has more than one article plus the regular column “A Statistician Reads the Sports Pages.”What lies in the future? Research to date has been heavily weighted in the areas of competition (rating players/teams and evaluating strategies for victory). This differs greatly from the research being performed in other parts of the world. Papers in publications of the International Sports Statistics Committee of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) have emphasized analysis of participation and popularity of sports. This is certainly one frontier of sports statistics that North American statisticians should explore in future work. Given the ongoing debate about the social and economic values of professional sports franchises, research in this area may become more common as well.