Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won (2011) by Tobias Moskowitz and Jon Wertheim can be best described as “Sports Illustrated meets Freakonomics.”
The authors crunch the data and challenge the conventional wisdom. In other words, stop punting, and go for it on 4th down. Very much fun for the thinking sports fan. (Or is that an oxymoron?)
Read reviews in the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal.