Moneyball

Years ago, I enjoyed Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker , a superbly written account of Lewis’s years on Wall Street. His latest, Moneyball , is even better. Lewis tells the story of the Oakland A’s, and particularly of their GM Billy Beane, and how he revolutionized the way baseball players are evaluated and scouted. Beane’s own baseball history of unrealized promise is fascinating, but the other stories that Lewis tells are equally so. My favorite character in the book so far is Billy James, a maverick baseball writer who invented new ways to keep baseball stats. Another interesting story is that of Jeremy Brown, a University of Alabama catcher that everyone in pro ball overlooks, except Beane. The story is fascinating, and Lewis’s writing is as lively as ever.