"The Wages of Wins provides some of the most intelligent yet readable sports analysis I"ve seen in a long time. Call it Freakonomics meets ESPN."

—Alan Schwarz, author, The Numbers Game: Baseball"s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics

"Buy this book if you never want to lose an office water cooler debate again."

—Darren Rovell, author, First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned The Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon

"Not just a book for thinking sports fans, but something more. A book that can turn any fan into a thinking sports fan."

—Allen Barra, Wall Street Journal, author of Brushbacks and Knockdowns : The Greatest Baseball Debates of Two Centuries

"It is impossible to properly evaluate the performance of professional sports teams today without examining the financial aspects of the business. In The Wages of Wins, authors David Berri, Martin Schmidt, and Stacey Brook take the reader behind the scenes and into the financial world that quite often determines the difference between success and failure. As the writers state, `Sports come with numbers." And with dollar signs. This book provides an interesting perspective to what helps determine the story behind wins and losses." —Fred Claire, former L.A. Dodger General Manager, author of Fred Claire: My 30 Years in Dodger Blue

Arguing about sports is as old as the games people play. Over the years sports debates have become muddled by many myths that do not match the numbers generated by those playing the games. In The Wages of Wins, the authors use layman"s language and easy to follow examples based on their own academic research to debunk many of the most commonly held beliefs about sports. In doing so they take on everything from the Yankee"s ability - or inability - to buy a World Series title; the ability of Michael Jordan to raise his level of play when the games mattered most; the consistency of Brett Favre; and the value of Allen Iverson. The book names names, and makes it abundantly clear that much of the decision-making of coaches and general managers does not hold up to an analysis of the numbers. Whether you are a fantasy league fanatic or a casual weekend fan, much of what you believe about sports will change after reading this book. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport (David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt, Stacey L. Brook)