Moneyball

The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Michael Lewis

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

"I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story." But the idea for the book came well before I had good reason to write it - before I had a story to fall in love with. It began, really, with an innocent question: how did one of the poorest teams in baseball, the Oakland Athletics, win so many games?

With these words Michael Lewis launches us into the funniest, smartest, and most contrarian book since, well, since Liar's Poker. Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the front offices of major league teams, and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers and physics professors.

These numbers prove that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. This information has been around for years, and nobody paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. Billy paid attention to those numbers, and this book records his astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted.

In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win...how can we not cheer for David?

©2003 Michael Lewis (P)2002 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The single most influential baseball book ever." (Rob Neyer, Slate)

"Another journalistic tour de force." (Wall Street Journal)

"Engaging, informative, and deliciously contrarian." (Washington Post)

"Lewis's reading is excellent....Not just for baseball fans, this story will impress anyone who understands that the way things are done can always be improved." (AudioFile)

Really Fun In The Summer

The author does a great job of crafting an interesting story of an odd character. Listen to the book then listen to a ball game...great tool for second guessing managers, general managers and owners.

Awesome!

A must for any fan who likes to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Great book

I do not like baseball and most definitely do not like statistics but this book is amazing. It made me so interested in baseball that I cannot even put it into words. Billy Beane is really an amazing person and this book shows why. Never a dull moment.

Excellent Book- Goes well beyond Baseball

Being new to Audible, this was the first Audiobook I have listened to the whole way through, which I did in only a couple days because it is so good. Michael Lewis' keen observations go well beyond the sport of Baseball; indeed the science of human misjudgement, its victims, and the issues which those who expoit it face are absolutely fascinating. I dont follow baseball, nor have I played (I got the book because I liked Liar's Poker so much), but was completely blown away by Lewis' amazing ability to get to the heart of an issue & enthrall with a story about a sport which was previously off my radar. One of the best non-fiction books I have ever read.

Not just about stats

I expected that this would be a book of stats and how Billy Beane used stats to make the A's great. It does include those, but the whole of the book is a lot more. The point of Moneyball is to get the greatest value out of those players that others had undervalued. So Lewis takes us through one story after another of players who were outcasts on other teams, because they didn't fit the protypical baseball mold, but paid dividends for the A's.

The book is good and the audio is well done. My only gripe is that the book threw in unnecessary profanity and even promotes it as manly -- at least according to the coach/minister of the relief pitcher mentioned.

Great for Baseball, Life

This book did a great job of explaining how the Oakland A's ignored the old paradigms out of necessity.

As a business person, I found the core message of challenging the status quo with science to be clearly presented.

The narration was very good and maintained a level of enthusiasm for the story.

I would welcome more details on the players that were overlooked by the other teams, and perhaps an epilogue on the team now that the book has been out for a while.

Loved it!

I enjoyed learning about "Billy Ball". This book enlightened me on how the A's took "gut feeling" out of the equation and looked, really, entirely on numbers and how they could predict a ball players future. I loved the book!

Great book

I'm not into baseball much but this book was recommended to me for a new perspective on hiring and managing employees. To that end it is really great and gave me some interesting clarity on evaluating performance of a team. After I finished the book I went and watched some of the games and players highlighted and I found another layer of satisfaction seeing the events in the book play out in real life. Now I'm going to watch the movie next.

great book, recommend it to any baseball fan.

great book, recommend it to any baseball fan. must read. . . . .

Great for everyone

Brilliant job by a brilliant writer, He presents the analytically world of baseball in a way that the average soap opera loving housewife will find positively enthralling.