Allan Roth
Allan Roth | |
---|---|
Born | Abraham Roth May 10, 1917 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Died | March 3, 1992 Culver City, California, U.S. | (aged 74)
Alma mater | McGill University |
Spouse | Esther Machlovitch
(m. 1940; div. 1965) |
Children | 2 |
Baseball career |
|
Statistician for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (1947-1964) | |
Member of the Canadian | |
Baseball Hall of Fame | |
Induction | 2010 |
Allan Roth (born Abraham Roth; May 17, 1917 – March 3, 1992) was a Canadian baseball and hockey statistician and an early proponent of sabermetrics in baseball. During his career, Roth worked for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers as their official statistician from 1947 to 1964.
Roth is considered by many to be the father of modern sabermetrics. He was the first full-time statistician ever employed by a Major League Baseball team, creating a number of new baseball statistics over the course of his work.
Early life
Roth was born in
Roth attended Strathcona Academy and, in his free time, compiled statistics for his hometown Montreal Royals of the International League. Additionally, he also compiled hockey statistics. He attended and graduated from McGill University. He would legally change his name from "Abraham" to "Allan" in 1941.[1]
In 1941, Roth was hired by Frank Calder, president of the National Hockey League, as the official statistician of the league after he showed Calder his compiled hockey statistics. This came after he tried to find a job with Larry MacPhail, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who was uninterested in Roth's work.[1]
Three months after his work with the NHL began, however, Roth was drafted into the Canadian Army. He worked in the unit charged with organizing reinforcement contingents for Canadian Forces in Europe, where he managed all the records and statistics. In January 1944, he was discharged from the Army due to epilepsy. After being discharged, he began to write articles in the sports section of the Montreal Standard and compiled statistics for the Montreal Canadiens.[1]
In 1944, Roth met with Branch Rickey, who had replaced MacPhail as the general manager of the Dodgers, sending him a four-page letter contained proposals to track a wide range of statistics. Rickey was impressed with Roth's work and offered him a job with the Dodgers. However, visa issues after World War II prevented Roth from taking up his new position until 1947.[1]
Baseball career
Upon taking up his new position, Roth proceeded to break down statistics into various categories such as performance against left-handers and right-handers, in the various ballparks, in situations with runners in scoring position, and performance in different ball-strike counts.[2] At the end of each season, he would compile the numbers on each player, including his newer, advanced stats. He also spent the next eighteen seasons recording every pitch thrown in a Dodgers game as well as their outcome.[3]
After Rickey departed from the Dodgers, new owner Walter O'Malley moved Roth to the press and public relations operation. As a result, his analysis and statistics began to appear regularly in the newspaper columns. Roth ran a publication called Press Box Pickups, which contained his work as well as promotional material and was distributed in the press box during gamedays. He was also put in charge of providing statistics for the team's yearbooks and media guides.[1]
Initially working from behind home plate, Roth was moved to the radio booth in 1954 where he provided statistics and facts to broadcasters. He quickly struck up a friendship with Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. From the booth, Roth also got a link to the press box and often provided statistics and analysis to reporters for their stories.[4]
After the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, Roth began to attend spring training in Vero Beach, Florida. He began to meet up with each player and would evaluate their performance from the previous year, emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses and suggesting changes to help the player improve their performance. Future Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax credited Roth with helping him turn around his career through these sessions.[1]
Roth is credited with inventing
Roth was fired by the Dodgers during the 1964 season after it was discovered that he was having an extramarital affair with an
Roth continued to contribute to baseball afterwards, writing articles for
Legacy
Roth was credited by sabermatrician Bill James as the founder of modern-day sabermetrics. For his contributions to baseball, he was elected the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.[5]
The
Personal life
Roth married Esther Machlovitch in 1940. The couple had two children: a son named Michael, and a daughter named Andrea. They divorced in 1965, one year after his affair was discovered and he was fired by the Dodgers.[1]
Roth died of a heart attack in Brotman Hospital in Culver City, California on March 3, 1992.[7]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Allan Roth (SABR BioProject)". Society for American Baseball Research.
- ^ Brown, Daniel (July 8, 2004). "Homage to stats freaks". ESPN.
- ^ Maher, Charles (August 11, 1963). "Baseball Game of Figures for Dodger Statistician". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Scully, Vin (March 22, 1992). "From Early On, Allan Roth was the Man Behind the Numbers". The New York Times.
- ^ "Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame". Baseball Almanac.
- ^ "SABR announces 2019 Henry Chadwick Award recipients". Society for American Baseball Research.
- ^ "Allan Roth, 74, Dies; Baseball Statistian". The New York Times. Associated Press. March 5, 1992.
Further reading
- Thorn, John; Palmer, Pete (1985). The Hidden Game of Baseball: A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Its Statistics. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-18284-8.
- Schwarz, Alan (2004). The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-32223-2.
External links
- Allan Roth: The story of the Canadian who was MLB's first team statistician, by Cooperstowners in Canada
- Allan Roth at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
- Allan Roth at the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)