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About the Author Michael Hoban, Ph.D., retired
in 2005 after a 48-year career in education. The last 35 years were
spent
teaching at the university level (after obtaining his doctorate in
mathematics
from Columbia University in 1970). Mike is Professor Emeritus of
mathematics at
the City University of N.Y. Professor Hoban has been an
avid baseball fan for 70 years. He grew
up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan and could walk to
both Yankee
Stadium and the Polo Grounds. He saw his
first baseball game in the Polo Grounds in 1946 at the age of 10 and
saw all
the greats of the time in both leagues. Among
his best baseball memories is when, at the age of 15, he saw Willie
Mays play
his first game in the Polo Grounds in 1951. He
still contends that Willie is the greatest
all-around player to have ever played the game. He has been a serious baseball analyst for the past 20 years. MLB: Lakewood
sabermetric expert Michael Hoban has made a difference. Mike has been a member
of SABR
(Society for American Baseball Research) and involved in baseball
analysis
since 1998. He is the author of five
books on baseball dealing with using the players’ numbers to analyze
their
careers. His latest book is DEFINING
GREATNESS: A Hall of Fame Handbook (Booklocker, 2012). On the CBS NEW YORK
website on January 12, 2011, writer Gabe Costa wrote an article
entitled BY THE
NUMBERS: SOME
PIONEERS IN SABERMETRICS. In the
article, he wrote about my CAWS CAREER GAUGE in relation to pitcher
Bert
Blyleven. He also said the following: “(John) Thorn, (Pete) Palmer,
(Bill) James and
(Mike) Hoban are just a few of the recent “pioneers” with regard to
sabermetrics. They, and many others, have only enhanced the
appreciation of the
game of baseball; a gripping, addictive, intoxicating, wonderful game!” (Mike does not see himself in the same
league as these three true pioneers but he is flattered that other
sabermetricians may see him that way.) In the NEW YORK TIMES sports
section of November 19, 2011, writer Richard Sandomir referred to
Mike’s CAWS
CAREER GAUGE when writing about Hall of Fame qualifications. In an article about the Yankees’ Allie
Reynolds being on the Veterans Committee Hall of Fame ballot at that
time,
Sandomir wrote as follows: “Dr.
Michael Hoban, a professor emeritus of mathematics at
City University of New York, said that Reynolds’s career “wasn’t long
enough,
and he simply didn’t contribute enough in those years.”
Hoban, who writes for the Seamheads.com
blog, has adapted the sabermetrician Bill James’s Win Shares formula to
examine
the full careers of major leaguers. He said that a starting pitcher
must score
at least 235 in his Career Assessment/Win Shares calculation, or CAWS,
to
deserve enshrinement. With a 157 score, Reynolds falls below Hoban’s
benchmark,
as do Luis Tiant (213) and Jim Kaat (203), neither of whom have made it
to
Cooperstown.” When Mike first began to work on the CAWS
CAREER
GAUGE, he sent an early article to Bill James (the creator of Win
Shares) for
his consideration. Mr. James responded
to the article as follows (12/2/2004): “Mike-- I read and enjoyed the
article, and I
appreciate your using Win Shares for the purpose for which it was
intended. . .
thanks. … Bill” Thus encouraged, Mike
has spent time
during the past ten years (since his retirement from teaching)
developing and
refining the CAWS approach. BASEBALL’S BEST: The TRUE Hall of Famers (Booklocker.com, 2007)
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