Wednesday, August 04, 2004
What do Money Ball and the New Perspective have in common?
Money Ball is a book that was written in 2003 about the 2002 Oakland A's. The basic premise of the book was to investigate how a team with a very small budget in baseball was able to compete year in and year out. The writer Michael Lewis followed the team's front office around, namely the G.M. Billy Beane. Well, anyway when the book came out it caused quite a stir. The stir was caused because Beane did not play by the "book," that is to say he based many of his decisions by using the unconventional methods of a man by the name of Bill James. He implemented some of those ideas of James and much of what he did as General Manager worked. Needless to say, Bill James has been viewed as an outcast by many in major league baseball. They believe that his statistical formulas do not conform to the tradition of the game etc... Needless to say the term Money Ball has become a pejorative in baseball. It has been treated as a monolithic movement. People, including the likes of Joe Morgan, have publicly ridiculed Billy Beane (usually a no no in that world) and accused him of not being a legitimate general manager. Suffice it to say, Money Ball has been maligned and disgarded by the baseball cliq. Money Ball can't win. The funny thing is this: people like Beane have never said the things that people accuse them of saying nor have people like Beane ever written a draft of what Money Ball is. Those who oppose the ideas have defined it for them and said essentially, "see this is what you believe!" Of course, you could see where my analogy is going. The big difference though is that one is taking place in major league baseball the other in the Church of the Living God.
posted by Tom 10:26 PM | Discuss |
