In the five long months since the Boston Red Sox became champions of Major League Baseball, fans all over the country have suffered through one of the harshest winters on record. Finally, with traditional Opening Day March 28, the boys of summer are back and fans at Washington University in St. Louis — especially Chancellor-elect Andrew D. Martin — couldn’t be happier about baseball and their beloved St. Louis Cardinals.
“The start of Cardinals baseball season in St. Louis brings so much more than the anticipation of home runs, strikeouts, hot dogs and cold beverages,” said Martin, who first fell for the Redbirds as a PhD student here in the 1990s. “It symbolizes the promise of spring and breathes new life into an entire community.
“There’s a contagious energy around Cardinals baseball — one you can never understand unless you experience it for yourself, and one I’m excited to experience again this year with our family’s return to the area.”
But baseball is more than a pastime, Martin said. It is a window into society and science.
“Here at WashU, we also celebrate America’s beloved pastime as it illuminates for us the myriad areas of our research and scholarship — from popular culture to business, analytics and statistics, the physics behind the sport, and so much more,” Martin said.
This special collection of stories commemorates the start of the 2019 Major League Baseball season with stories about the students and faculty who both love — and study — the game.
Self-proclaimed baseball, math nerd scores dream job
The New York Yankees have hired Washington University senior Rohan Gupta as a baseball operations associate. He will crunch big data, “Moneyball”-style, to give the team a competitive edge.
David Peters, of the McKelvey School of Engineering, has a body of work in applied aerodynamics and a host of academic honors, but he’s also a baseball fan. That’s why watching a baseball game takes on a whole new spin, aerodynamically speaking.
The ins and outs of the economics of baseball
Patrick Rishe, director of Olin Business School’s sports business program, joined “Squawk Box” to discuss the economics of baseball and why Angel Mike Trout deserves his big payday.
“The game’s history and traditions are rich, but they threaten to suffocate its future,” wrote Noah Cohan, a lecturer in American culture studies in Arts & Sciences and author of an upcoming book on sports fan narratives.
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