Moneyball - Michael Lewis - 2003

 


First I will say something dumb. So Under the Banner of Heaven was written by Jon Krakauer. Michael Lewis wrote this one. However the audio on both was done by the same person jajajaja whose name is Scott Brick. So shout out to Scott Brick. He has a nice deep sturdy reading voice. 

First let me say I have read a lot of better books than this one that have not been turned into movies starring Brad Pitt. The book is good and it teaches a very critical lesson: there is a very good chance that everyone is missing something right now or you are missing something right now in your own life that you could solve through deep deep thought on the subject. This is essentially what the Oakland As did. They used advanced statistics (sabermetrics) and Harvard graduates to create a playoff baseball team with very little money. With the data, they were able to identify really really good players that other teams consistently overlooked. The book does not say this but this all happened around 2000, so perhaps they were also some of the first to use new technology and the internet to their advantage. I kind of think if you are the first to use something new and understand what it is and what you are doing with it, you will have an advantage (think bitcoin in 2009, 2010, 2011 etc). 

Full disclosure, I hate baseball and think it is boring but this book was still fun to read and easy to read. It is not too long. 

I really liked the discussion of the mental aspect of the game. When I play sports, I always choke because I am afraid to make a mistake (to the point that usually I don’t even want to play or to the point that I will only play individual sports). Oddly some of the pro players struggle/struggled with the same thing. I guess it is a human trait. 

Anyways worth reading but not the greatest book ever. The Big Short by Michael Lewis was 1000 times better than this one. Michael Lewis and Jon Krakauer must be related jajaja because their writing style is very similar. I think Krakauer does a bit more research or maybe that is just my take after reading Under the Banner of Heaven and then Moneyball. 

Rachel and Cathy bought me some hard copy books to read but I do not think I can see the small font so I will probably read some more Krakauer or Lewis or Hannah, whatever is available first. Peace! Happy reading! My boss at UPS read 41 books last year. There is always someone better than you. Jajajaja darn   

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