false 1301 12 Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's <I>Moneyball</I>, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans. <p> Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, <I>Moneyball</I> is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (<I>Liar's Poker</I>, <I>The New New Thing</I>), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes <I>Moneyball</I> an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. <I>--John Moe</I> 416305 2003 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game total:4417|5:1764|4:1930|3:646|2:68|1:9| 4417 18623 5408 653 3 2 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Dec 17 12:47:06 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 13:56:21 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 09 11:23:51 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 18:27:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 30 10:52:38 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 30 11:18:13 -0700 2008
The writing’s a little heavy-handed in places, which might just be a hazard of writing about baseball. Ex: “The batter’s box was a cage designed to crush his spirit.”

Plus, as a poet, I always feel guilty reading books like this when I could/should be re...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 22 16:15:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 12:57:05 -0700 2008
Moneyball is framed around the story of Billy Beane, a hot prospect who never panned out in the majors, who became general manager of the Oakland A's in 1997...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 22 08:02:15 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 22 08:02:15 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Aug 03 11:30:11 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 11:32:56 -0700 2007
“The point about Lenny, at least to Billy, was clear: Lenny didn’t let his mind ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Feb 24 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 09:27:31 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 09:30:06 -0800 2009 5 1 false false Sun Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 06 04:33:06 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 09 06:08:25 -0700 2008 1 Hate it.
Then how is it that this book, about applying pertinent statistical analyis to creating baseball teams and playing basesball, so captivated me? It's a testament to a) the skill of the author, Michael Lewis, but also b) the unequivocal appeal of the...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Nov 16 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Aug 15 21:45:59 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 16 15:08:43 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Aug 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 15:23:09 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 14:26:27 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 22:26:01 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 21:35:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 02 04:09:35 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 17:01:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 04:54:54 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 05:30:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Apr 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 14:18:03 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 14:30:02 -0700 2009 3 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 13:47:10 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 26 20:34:01 -0700 2009
This book has many facets

- a logical, statistical analysis of baseball : appeals to the mathematcians, and those who love logic (me)...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 21:24:53 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 20:29:18 -0800 2009
Very interesting book with a fresh perspective on baseball without adhering too much to the formula of his previous Liar's Poker book. I was afraid his book would be similar and try to draw too many parallels with his prevailing topic of investment banking and the financ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 11:40:37 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 09:35:01 -0700 2009
And, in a sense, I don't mind that I was so behind the times on it. Reading this book now, in 2009, as every...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 28 08:14:55 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 28 08:21:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jan 24 09:20:55 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 09:33:38 -0800 2009 Moneyball nevertheless proves more substantial than its intellectual cousins (I'm thinking specifically of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Blink) because its far less ambitious. Instead of trying to e...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 03:37:28 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 01:55:43 -0700 2009 Nick Hornby, The Believer

...more...]]>