May 08, 2009

Moneyball




I finally read it. And: wow.

I don't know what took me so long but, like many things in life, better late than never.

"My shit doesn't work on in the play-offs. My job is getting us to the play-offs. What happens after that is fucking luck."
- Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane

Buy it. Borrow it from your local library. Steal it. If you're a fan of the beautiful game of baseball, you need to know exactly what Billy Beane's "shit" is.

I'm kind of sad I've finished it. Fuck. What a book.

9 comments:

Scott said...

Steal it... bahahaha. Good read indeed.

Down Goes Brown said...

If you're a football fan, check out The Blind Side by the same author. It combines Moneyball-ish analysis with a human interest story. (And the kid the book is about was just drafted in the first round by the Ravens.)

The Captain said...

Great book, I'll have to pick up The Blind Side.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

Thanks for the recommendation, DGB. You're a rudey.

Ian Hunter said...

Oddly enough, you finish Moneyball just in time for the Jays rolling into face Beane's Oakland A's. It is a great book, and J.P. Ricciardi even makes a cameo!

the expos said...

Yes its a great book, its funny to see some of the people's reaction to that when it was relased to its perception nowadays.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Beane is on the money. People don't want to admit it, but the only thing you can do is build your team to make the playoffs. Baseball is a game conducive to a long schedule. It's actually somewhat ridiculous that there's even a best 3-of-5 series after a 162-game schedule. Get your team to the playoffs and the rest is up in the air. That should be the Blue Jays motto this year!

Andrew Bucholtz said...

Yeah, great book. As DGB mentioned, The Blind Side is also excellent; I actually like it even more than Moneyball, but I'm more of a football guy. This piece Lewis wrote for the New York Times magazine on Shane Battier is also awesome.

mf37 said...

Glad you liked it, I'll see the recommendation for Blind Side raise it with this article on the financial meltdown: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom

His inside look at Wall Street in the 90s, "Liars Poker" is a great read too.