SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Don Zminda (Episode #45)
Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer. SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.
Subscribe to SABRcast on your favorite podcast networks, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play, and listen to each episode as soon as it’s released.
Neyer is a longtime baseball writer and editor for ESPN.com, SB Nation, and FoxSports.com. He began his career as a research assistant for groundbreaking baseball author Bill James and later worked for STATS, Inc. He has also written or co-written seven baseball books, including The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Bill James), winner of the Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award, and most recently Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, winner of this year’s CASEY Award.
Episode #45: February 3, 2020
This week’s guest is Don Zminda, author of The Legendary Harry Caray: Baseball’s Greatest Salesman. He spent more than two decades working for STATS LLC, first as Director of Publications and more recently as the company’s Director of Research for sports broadcasts. He has co-authored or edited more than a dozen baseball books, including the annual STATS Baseball Scoreboard (1990–2000) and the SABR Digital Library publication Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox. A Chicago native, Don is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives in Los Angeles.
Click here or press play below to listen to Episode #45:
What’s Rob reading this week?
“MLB Pitch Classification”
By Sam Sharpe, MLB Technology Blog
When you’re watching your favorite pitcher in your local ballpark, using data captured by your eyes, your brain has performed a pitch classification. MLB performs a similar task in real time for nearly 750,000 pitches each season using patented pitch classification neural network software that is customized for every pitcher in Major League Baseball. The automated classifications for each pitch are displayed on Gameday, At-Bat, and MLB.TV, as well as on local and national broadcasts, on the scoreboards and in-stadium displays in all 30 MLB venues, and on Baseball Savant.
- Also reading: Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
- Read more: Click here to check out Rob’s full list of book recommendations on Goodreads.com
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