A timely book here just ahead of opening day, http://tradingbases.squarespace.com/. Peta relates a lifelong love of baseball and statistics, his experiences as an equity desk trader for Lehman Bros. (15 years) and his subsequent battle back from a horrifying injury sustained by being run over in the streets of NY by an ambulance –as if his Lehman experience wasn’t enough to endure. He suffered a “Theisman grotesque” leg break that left him depressed and basically rehabbing alone in his NY apartment with wife and family living on the west coast.

His passion for trading snuffed by not being able to work, hopped up on pain meds, and trapped in the apartment leads to him to watching more sports than ever before. A baseball lover at heart and a statistical junkie, Peta finds a reason to wake up in the mornings. He decides to try his hand at making a statistical model that would identify edges for baseball team wins and losses that would provide him with a betting edge over the Vegas Line.

Peta eventually creates a hedge fund that bets baseball games that returns 41% in 2011 with similar daily volatility as the S&P 500. The book outlines Joe’s views on gambling. Baseball is his preferred niche since the juice/spread is the smallest in comparison to other sports, the ability to use statistics to get an edge is available, and the natural alignment between the better and the team– rooting for your team to win versus the convolution of winning and beating a point spread. (more…)