What is Moneyball Really About?
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis A Book Review by Henry I. Langsam, Esquire, Stevens & Silver LLP This is an excerpt from a longer article, the beginning of which was published in our last newsletter. The entire article is available on our website at www.langsamstevens.com/Moneyball.htm. Billy Beane’s 2002 Draft When we think of intellectuals, scientists and thinkers, we might consider Albert Einstein or John Maynard Keynes, however, we surely do not think of baseball people as intellectuals. Bill James was baseball’s version of the intellectual. The message Bill James whispered to Billy was: if you challenge conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done in baseball. The A’s not only adopted Bill James’ thinking, they built on it and improved it. The whole point of James was: don’t be an ape! Think for yourself along rational lines. Hypothesize, test against the evidence, never accept that a question has been
