Carson Cistulli is an American poet, essayist and baseball analyst for the Toronto Blue Jays. His works of poetry include Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated, Assorted Fictions, and A Century of Enthusiasm.
Biography
Early years
Carson Cistulli was born December 23, 1979, in Concord, New Hampshire, to Philip Cistulli Jr. and Holly Young. Carson passed his early childhood in a middle class Italian-American household until his parents' divorce in 1994. Cistulli attended boarding school at Milton Academy in Massachusetts.
In an essay about sports and aesthetics, "A Lengthy Meditation on Baseball and the Science of Happiness," Cistulli explained that part of his turn towards writing was a therapeutic response to anxiety attacks. Cistulli wrote that these attacks became so intense that he at times struggled to breathe: "During the fall of 2001, while living in Missoula, MT, I began experiencing some symptoms of generalized anxiety: occasional tightness or pain in the chest and limbs, invasive thoughts about death and illness those symptoms persisted off and on into the next spring, at which time I developed a considerably less pleasant one : for long periods of time, and with no warning, I was unable to breathe involuntarily."
Poetry
Cistulli's work A Century of Enthusiasm begins "People of the world, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Carson Harrington Cistulli, ambassador to crunk in the Western Hemisphere." Carson plays with context and language often mixing the vernacular with the scholastic. References to pop-culture and intertextuality with scholastic figures as varied as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sean Casey or Emily Dickinson occur frequently in his work. Cistulli also plays with the notions of authorship, poetic inspiration, and recontextualization. Lisa Baker writes that "In a day and age when we are quick to consume the rigid definitions of relationships fed to us by those who wield power, Cistulli tutors us in language's malleability; a new comparison, an unexpected verb in a familiar phrase can force an entirely new perspective—and perhaps one more curious and more generous."
Cistulli has written that his interest in sabermetrics is to explore "that place where quantitative analysis and aesthetics meet" in practicing what he calls the art of sabermetrical research. Within sabermetrics he is the creator of NERD, SCOUT and historical GBz%. Cistulli has influenced many contemporary sports thinkers including Rob Neyer who, asked about the value of Cistulli's work within the sabermetric community, responded "there's value in just about everything that Cistulli does. He's got an original mind and we'll ignore him at our peril."
Radio hosting
Cistulli was previously the host of "Goal: The Soccer Show" and "The Shuttlecoque Sporting Hour" He was formerly the host of FanGraphs Audio. With FanGraphs Audio he has interviewed, among others, Matt Antonelli, Rob Nelson, Dayn Perry, Jesse Thorn, and Rob Neyer.
Blue Jays
On November 16, 2018 Carson announced that he had been hired by the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball, and left Fangraphs to work for the team. The next day, the Blue Jays traded Aledmys Diaz to the Houston Astros for Trent Thornton, whose stuff had previously been described as "fringe". It has been reported that he is working alongside Jon Lalonde, Nick Manno and Brent Urcheck to "curate running rankings of the players in each organization."
Personal
Cistulli and Kali Coles announced their engagement in May 2009 and married in August. They have one son, Jackie.
