Allan Roth pushed the analysis of baseball statistics to a new level. He promoted himself into a job earlier analysts only aspired to. Roth “was the only zealot lucky enough to work for a major league team and to get to test his theories first hand,” wrote Alan Schwarz.
Abraham Roth was born in Montreal on May 10, 1917, the son of Nathan and Rose (Silverheart). Nathan worked as a tailor and the family moved around Ontario province before returning to Montreal during Abraham’s high school years, when he attended Strathcona Academy, playing all the major sports. He also spent many free hours from ages 13 to 16 compiling statistics for the International League and his home town Montreal Royals. He passed the entrance examination for McGill University, where older brother Max was already studying. Family circumstances, however, prevented paying for a second college student, so Abraham took a job. He worked as a salesman, first of magazines and later of men’s ties, suspenders, belts, and mufflers. In 1940, he married Esther Machlovitch and changed his name to Allan before going into the Canadian army.
Roth started his quest for a major league career by writing Brooklyn Dodgers president Larry MacPhail in December 1940. MacPhail was, at best, non-committal. After his 1944 discharge for medical reasons, Roth’s attention returned to the Dodgers, but this time focused on Branch Rickey, MacPhail’s successor and an executive Roth considered the most innovative man in sports.
Roth’s four-page letter contained proposals to track a wide range of statistics. Some of these were standard, but others, such as where the ball was hit and the count it was hit on, hadn’t been compiled regularly. Roth also proposed to break the statistics down into various categories that would reveal tendencies which the front office and the manager could use to win ballgames.
Breakdowns that are mundane to us now—performance against left-handers and right-handers, in day games versus night games, in the various ballparks, in situations with runners in scoring position—were rarely compiled or used, and never part of the public discussion in Roth’s time. The letter was intriguing enough to get a meeting with a still-skeptic
