For my project, I reread Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Unlike the movie, there is a large discussion on Bill James (the founder of sabermetrics and modern-day data analytics in baseball). I learned about a number of his methods, ideas, issues, and questions, which I can now apply to my own project. Because of this book, I am now thinking more like Bill James did, asking questions like who should various outcomes be attributed to? Is this actually important or does it just appear that way? Is this correlation or causation?

I also read various articles on ESPN to see how they incorporated statistics into their writing. As a big “STEM guy”, I am much more comfortable with the statistics and coding side of my project. Seeing how this can merge with the communication side is essential for my essential question, which looks at how statistics can cross the bridge into the qualitative life we live.