Book Review #54

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

There are two periods of time for a sports fan: before Moneyball and after Moneyball. Once you read it you'll never think the same way about professional athletes.

Lewis developed an interest in the Oakland A's when he discovered that they were having winning seasons with one of the lowest budgets in the game. He wrote Moneyball to explain how this was possible. GM Billy Beane, former ballplayer full of promise who had been rushed into the big leagues by scouts and then crashed and burned, puts into practice the theory of Bill James--that baseball players' worth can be realized through their stats. The drama comes when the rest of major league baseball thinks of this new approach as heresy.

General consensus: Not always full of excitement, but full of interesting points about statistical analysis of humans that can even be useful in disciplines other than baseball.