Moneyball by Michael Lewis

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

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 2011)

316 pages, eBook (borrowed with Amazon Prime)

Book Rating: 4 Stars

Content Note: Includes Swearing

This book sets out to uncover how poor baseball teams can compete with rich baseball teams, and the strategy developed by Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane, (and his predecessors) to try to do just that (a way of manipulating an unfair system to try to turn it to their favor). A very interesting look at the game of baseball, the way the players are drafted, and the reasons the system as a whole is so terribly flawed. The book is dry and overly academic at times (especially during the portions of the book concerned with the history of baseball statistics and their use—sabermetrics), but overall it takes a fairly complicated subject and makes it an intelligible and entertaining read. The anecdotes and the inside look it provides regarding many of the important players in the Oakland A’s story alone, are well worth putting in the time to read the book.

Movie Adaptations:

Moneyball (2011)

Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Movie Rating: PG-13

My Rating: 5 Stars

Adaption: Verbatim-Tweaked-Veiled

Eye Candy: Plain-Pretty-Sultry

This adaption simplifies and summarizes many of the concepts in the book, combines some characters and portrays people and events in a bit kinder light than the reality presented in the book, but I believe the spirit, purpose and findings of the book are unequivocally present in this film and it is one of the few examples of a film that I prefer to the book that it originated from. The casting was awesome and it presented an academic view of baseball in a way easily consumed by the average person. Great film!