Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (英語) 平裝

基本信息

作者：Michael Lewis

出版社: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint (2004年4月1日)

外文書名: 錢與球: 在不公平比賽中獲勝的藝術

平裝: 320頁

語種：英語

ISBN: 0393324818

條形碼: 9780393324815

商品尺寸: 14 x 2.3 x 21.1 cm

商品重量: 272 g

ASIN: 0393324818

內容簡介

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A's, visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge-insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.

媒體推薦

Lewis was in the room with the A''s top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. 

Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. 

We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can''t-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar''s Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane''s economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. --John Moe 

From Publishers Weekly

Lewis (Liar''s Poker; The New New Thing) examines how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team. Given the heavily publicized salaries of players for teams like the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees, baseball insiders and fans assume that the biggest talents deserve and get the biggest salaries. However, argues Lewis, little-known numbers and statistics matter more. Lewis discusses Bill James and his annual stats newsletter, Baseball Abstract, along with other mathematical analysis of the game. Surprisingly, though, most managers have not paid attention to this research, except for Billy Beane, general manager of the A''s and a former player; according to Lewis, "[B]y the beginning of the 2002 season, the Oakland A''s, by winning so much with so little, had become something of an embarrassment to Bud Selig and, by extension, Major League Baseball." The team''s success is actually a shrewd combination of luck, careful player choices and Beane''s first-rate negotiating skills. Beane knows which players are likely to be traded by other teams, and he manages to involve himself even when the trade is unconnected to the A''s. " `Trawling'' is what he called this activity," writes Lewis. "His constant chatter was a way of keeping tabs on the body of information critical to his trading success." Lewis chronicles Beane''s life, focusing on his uncanny ability to find and sign the right players. His de*ive writing allows Beane and the others in the lively cast of baseball characters to come alive.

Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

From The New Yorker 

The Oakland Athletics have reached the post-season playoffs three years in a row, even though they spend just one dollar for every three that the New York Yankees spend. Their secret, as Lewis''s lively account demonstrates, is not on the field but in the front office, in the shape of the general manager, Billy Beane. Unable to afford the star hires of his big-spending rivals, Beane disdains the received wisdom about what makes a player valuable, and has a passion for neglected statistics that reveal how runs are really scored. Beane''s ideas are beginning to attract disciples, most notably at the Boston Red Sox, who nearly lured him away from Oakland over the winter. At the last moment, Beane''s loyalty got the better of him; besides, moving to a team with a much larger payroll would have diminished the challenge. 

Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker 

From AudioFile

Before Bill James, baseball junkies, even those selecting players, were relegated to assessing players and teams using only mundane statistics. Then, the Oakland Athletics, under General Manager Billy Beane, adopted James''s radical methods--and philosophy--with dramatic success. Michael Lewis tells the surprisingly fascinating story behind the success of the A''s, whose choices of players were often derided by other teams. Lewis''s reading is excellent; he loves the story and the people, and the joy he experienced writing MONEYBALL comes through as clearly as any fastball. Not just for baseball fans, this story will impress anyone who understands that the way things are done can always be improved, even the seemingly subjective process of picking star athletes. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

From Booklist

Unlike professional football and basketball, Major League Baseball has no cap on the amount of money a team can spend on its players, which makes it nearly impossible for "small market" clubs to compete with the behemoths in Gotham and L.A. On the other hand, as Lewis shows us in his engaging saga of the Oakland Athletics, there are always ways to win on the cheap. The hero of Lewis'' tale is Oakland General Manager Billy Beane, a bust as a player but a deft judge of talent. Lewis was granted what appears to be unlimited access--he often found himself in the Oakland executive offices when a big trade was going down--and his book reads like it. He also does a wonderful job of picking the brains and explaining the motives of the baseball statistics geeks who are helping redefine the way the game will be played in the twenty-first century. With so many baseball books to choose from, it is difficult to single out a few as must-haves, but this one comes pretty close. Kevin Canfield

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved 

Weekly Standard

May be the best book ever written on business. 

Wall Street Journal

Another journalistic tour de force. 

Washington Post

Engaging, informative, and deliciously contrarian. 

New York Observer

Stunning....[Lewis''s] explanations of the science of baseball...are spellbinding. 

Garry Trudeau

A brilliantly told tale....Michael Lewis''s beautiful obsession with the idea of value has once again yielded gold. 

Newsweek

Anyone who cares about baseball must read Moneyball. 

San Jose Mercury News

An extraordinary job of reporting and writing. 

Baseball America

You have to read Moneyball...Amazing anecdotes...an entertaining, enlightening read. 

Time

Ebullient, invigorating...provides plenty of action, both numerical and athletic, on the field and in the draft-day war room. 

The New York Times Book Review

One of the most enjoyable baseball books in years.

作者簡介

Michael Lewis is the author of the bestsellers Liar's Poker and The New New Thing. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their two daughters.