Hot Hands, Draft Hype, and DiMaggio's Streak

If you grew up as a sports fan you found yourself engrossed in discussion, and quite possibly arguments, about your sports heroes, their accomplishments, and their teams. Should you fit this profile, this book is required reading. Hirsch provides a fascinating and typically unconventional take on some of the most heated debates in sports. It is meticulously researched and the author’s background as a physician makes him well acquainted with two of sports most important areas-its science and its statistics-and makes this an essential part of any sports library. . . You will be smarter after reading it.

Hirsch is one of the shrewdest and liveliest of baseball analysts, and Hot Hands, primarily a baseball book though it deals with some basketball and football myths as well, is grist for the mill at your favorite pub. . . . Not the least of Hirsch's virtues is a fearlessness in debunking sacred cows. . . . Essential reading for sports fans who love to argue. Or stated a simpler way: essential reading for sports fans.

The author provides fascinating and typically unconventional takes on some of the most heated debates in baseball, football and basketball, while occasionally tossing in intriguing digressions. The book is meticulously researched, and the author’s background as a physician well acquainted with two of sports most important facets – its science and its statistics – makes this an essential part of any sports library.

Hirsch’s analytic approach dispels myths, ponders hypotheticals, and leads to refreshing conclusions. You’ll find everything he writes interesting and thought-provoking. This is unlike any other book about sports.

Sheldon Hirsch stands conventional sports wisdom on its head. Whether the purveyors of sports clichés are announcers, journalists, coaches, or commissioners, Hirsch pokes holes right and left. Hirsch makes us rethink our comfortable assumptions about player records, game strategies, injuries and disabilities, and the futures of baseball, basketball and football.