Dayn Perry
Encyclopedia
Journalism
His journalism can be found on FanGraphsFangraphs
FanGraphs.com is a website run by Fangraphs Inc., located in Arlington, Virginia, and created and owned by David Appelman that provides statistics for every player in Major League Baseball history....
online journal NotGraphs. He formerly published with BaseballProspectus.com
Baseball Prospectus
Baseball Prospectus is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well player and team performance projections on the site...
and at Foxsports.com
Foxsports.com
Foxsports.com provides sports news, scores, sports statistics, sports and entertainment video, sports fantasy leagues and fantasy information. Launched in July 2001, it is a unit of Fox Interactive Media, which also includes other News Corporation online businesses, including MySpace, IGN...
. He has also contributed articles to Washington Monthly, ESPN Magazine, The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
, The Montreal Gazette, Reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
, and The New York Sun.
Baseball Prospectus
At Baseball ProspectusBaseball Prospectus
Baseball Prospectus is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well player and team performance projections on the site...
he wrote a regular "Can of Corn" column from July 2003 to July 2008. With Baseball Prospectus, in addition to his regular column, Perry contributed to many of the annual books as well as to Baseball Between the Numbers (ISBN 0465005470).
Fox Sports
Dayn joined Foxsports.comFoxsports.com
Foxsports.com provides sports news, scores, sports statistics, sports and entertainment video, sports fantasy leagues and fantasy information. Launched in July 2001, it is a unit of Fox Interactive Media, which also includes other News Corporation online businesses, including MySpace, IGN...
as a frequent contributor in 2002 and would later become one of Fox Sports senior baseball writers (or "experts," along with Ken Rosenthal
Ken Rosenthal
Kenneth H. Rosenthal is an American sportswriter and reporter.Rosenthal has served as lead field reporter for Major League Baseball on Fox since 2005...
.) He continued to contribute to Fox Sports in a staff that included Rosenthal, Jon Paul Morosi, Tracy Ringolsby
Tracy Ringolsby
Tracy Ringolsby is a columnist with Baseball America and foxsports.com, who also handles pre-game and post-game shows for Root Sports telecasts of the Colorado Rockies, and is an occasional analyst on MLB Network. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado, until its closure during...
and Bob Klapisch
Bob Klapisch
Robert Salvador "Bob" Klapisch is a sportswriter for The Record and Fox Sports. He has previously written for The New York Post, ESPN, and New York Daily News, and has written five books about baseball...
until July 2011.
NotGraphs
Perry joined NotGraphs in December 2010. Asked about the reasons for moving to NotGraphs full time he said that he was "tired of straight analysis" and wanted a place to exercise his "boundless" if at times "awful" sense of humor, for the "unbridled whimsy." He is part of a staff that also includes Carson CistulliCarson Cistulli
Carson Cistulli is an American poet, essayist and English professor. His works of poetry include Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated, Assorted Fictions, and A Century of Enthusiasm.- Early Years :...
and Navin Vaswani, and formerly included Jonah Keri
Jonah Keri
Jonah Keri is a Canadian journalist, sportswriter and an editor. He is also a New York Times bestselling author.-Early life and education:...
.
His first full length article for NotGraphs was entitled "The Power and Glory of Baseball Advertising" a playful look at "baseball’s place in the culture of advertising" which was followed by a piece about Repeal Day and then "Towards a Better Journalism" which asked "how we can improve your reading experience, refashion baseball journalism and vastly simplify the lives of our heroic and harried beat writers?" Continuing in this vein Perry's writing at NotGraphs often mixes comedy and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
. He also provides autobiographical writing, art criticism
Art criticism
Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...
, photo essay
Photo essay
A photo-essay is a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. A photo essay will often show pictures in deep emotional stages. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text...
s, and poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
.
Winners
The vast majority of the analytical community has long since disabused itself of the Panglossian notion that anything that matters in baseball can be quantified. Most of us didn’t believe that for a second[.] |
| Winners, p. 3 |
Perry published his first book Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think) in 2006. Using a numbers-oriented approach this book attempts to show how successful baseball organizations become what they are and what they do to remain successful. In his bookreview The Hardball Times
The Hardball Times
is a website which publishes news, original comments and statistical analysis of baseball each week Monday through Friday, in addition to the Hardball Times Annual book which features essays by leading sabermetric personalities. The website features the slogan "Baseball. Insight...
Dan Fox described the book as "well-written" on a "great topic" applauding Dayn for his "application of performance analysis to the strategies and tactics used over the past quarter century" and "brief portraits of some of the more interesting players to have put on a uniform during that time." Then General Manager Kevin Towers called it "a lively narrative that blends astute analysis with clever storytelling" but Perry himself says its "objectively not a good book" (while admitting that he's his "own worst critic.")
Reggie Jackson
Perry published his second book Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October in 2010. This book, a biography of Hall of FameHall of Fame
A hall of fame, wall of fame, walk of fame, walk of stars or avenue of stars is a type of attraction established for any field of endeavor to honor individuals of noteworthy achievement in that field...
baseball player Reggie Jackson
Reggie Jackson
Reginald Martinez "Reggie" Jackson , nicknamed "Mr. October" for his clutch hitting in the postseason with the New York Yankees, is a former American Major League Baseball right fielder. During a 21-year baseball career, he played from 1967-1987 for four different teams. Jackson currently serves as...
, covers Jackson's life from childhood to the major leagues. Steve Lombardi of waswatching.com called it "remarkably well researched" and "very entertaining" and Steve Treder of the The Hardball Times
The Hardball Times
is a website which publishes news, original comments and statistical analysis of baseball each week Monday through Friday, in addition to the Hardball Times Annual book which features essays by leading sabermetric personalities. The website features the slogan "Baseball. Insight...
calls it a "serious and thoughtful volumes displaying highly impressive research," "handsomely presented, top-shelf physical product, with no stinting on any of the extras: wonderful photos aplenty, richly detailed endnotes and indeces" but notes that "Jackson, while an unquestionably important figure in baseball history, isn’t the sort of book-length protagonist for whom the reader is inclined to root" and that the "strict focus on Jackson alone allows for little examination of whatever the wider implications of his career might be."
Personal life
Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelors in English and masters in Creative WritingCreative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
from Mississippi College
Mississippi College
Mississippi College, also known as MC, is a private, Christian university located in Clinton, Mississippi. Mississippi College comprises the main campus in Clinton, as well as satellite campuses in Brandon and Madison, Mississippi, and the Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson...
. He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...
."
Works
- Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think). New York: Wiley, 2006. ISBN 0471721743.
- Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October. New York: William Morrow, 2010. ISBN 0061562386.
Selected Baseball Writing
- How the Phillies Pulled it Off (November, 2008)
- A Brief Introduction (December, 2010)
- The Stages of Wainwright Grief (February, 2011)
- Satchel Paige could have been best ever (April, 2011)
- Poem: The Sad Baseball Frog (November, 2011)
Interviews
- March, 2006 - Interview (transcript) with Rich Lederer, Baseball Analysts
- December, 2008 - Interview (transcript) with Tyler Hissey, Scout.comScout.comScout.com is an integrated sports publishing company that produces both an Internet and print product. Scout has more than 2.1 million visitors...
- May, 2010 - Interview (transcript) with Alex Belth, Bronx Banter
- January, 2011 - Interview with Carson CistulliCarson CistulliCarson Cistulli is an American poet, essayist and English professor. His works of poetry include Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated, Assorted Fictions, and A Century of Enthusiasm.- Early Years :...
, FanGraphs Audio