Moneyball - Michael Lewis

Title: Moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game
Author: Michael Lewis
Pages: 320
Published: 2011 (originally published in 2003)
Genre: Non-fiction, Sports
Rating: 3.5/5

The Oakland Athletics have a secret: a winning baseball team is made, not bought.In major league baseball the biggest wallet is supposed to win: rich teams spend four times as much on talent as poor teams. But over the past four years, the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league payroll, have had one of the best records. Last year their superstar, Jason Giambi, went to the superrich Yankees. It hasn't made any difference to Oakland: their fabulous season included an American League record for consecutive victories. Billy Beane, general manager of the Athletics, is putting into practice on the field revolutionary principles garnered from geek statisticians and college professors. Michael Lewis's brilliant, irreverent reporting takes us from the dugouts and locker rooms-where coaches and players struggle to unlearn most of what they know about pitching and hitting-to the boardrooms, where we meet owners who begin to look like fools at the poker table, spending enormous sums without a clue what they are doing. (via Goodreads)


Thoughts: I read this book because of the movie and also because I had heard about on a sports podcast that I listen to on a regular basis.  The first book of Lewis' that I read was The Big Short and by the end of that one I was ready to finish it, as I felt that the subject was a tad dull and would never read another one of his books.  Well, I caved.  Overall I thought that it was a good read and that it had an interesting subject to talk about.  But, there were times that I had to just slog through the book and read it at times.   A bunch of the book flew over my head in terms of the statistics, but what was interesting to me was the history behind what would become moneyball.   I would recommend the book for those that like to read about the statistical analysis of professional athletes, especially baseball fans.

12084 / 15000 pages. 81% done!