A Book about Baseball: Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Moneyball by Michael Lewis is more than just a book about baseball as most may believe it to be. It is a novel about business, leadership, character, and overcoming the odds and competition no matter how much of a disadvantage there may be. The difficult part is seeing how all this can be understood by reading a book about baseball, however if the book is read and analyzed carefully the lessons are as clear as day and easy to understand.

The plot of Moneyball is based on the true story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics baseball team, also known as the Oakland A’s. General Manager of Oakland, Billy Beane, and his assistant general manager Paul DePodesta are the main characters in the story. The novel starts out as flashback so the reader may understand the up’s and downs of Beane’s past as a child and young adult and goes on to describe how he ended up as the GM of the Oakland A’s. Fast forwarding to the present in 2001 the Oakland A’s had just come off an upsetting post-season loss to the New York Yankees. Looking for a better season in 2002, and with looming contract expirations for his star players, Beane begins to reevaluate scouting techniques and just how he can compete with the big name MLB teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, who have a team payrolls at about $120 Million compared to the A’s $44 Million payroll. With the A’s measly annual payroll it is hard for them to acquire big name players and they have basically became a scouting ground for the big name teams, if they see a player whom they believe has potential ,the said player would be out of Oakland within days and on the other team’s payroll. This became a problem for Billy who was losing players left and right and he realized that something had to be ...

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...is high school coach that he would never amount to much, he was not recruited by any colleges and had to make a name for himself and eventually was drafted into the Major leagues. From there he jumped around a couple of teams and joined the Oakland A’s in 1989. After playing for a few years as an A, he decided that he wanted to retire from the field and work in the office. He worked his way through the ranks in the Oakland A’s office and eventually found himself with the title of General Manager. As GM Beane never gave up at making his team the best they could be, he was unwavering in his views and knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it and what it took to create a winning team. Beane was so persistent he even changed the way which baseball, a game that had been around for over a century, was played. Beane’s attitude towards his goals is very enlightening