Moneyball

Abridged
Author: Michael Lewis
Narrator: Michael Lewis
Genres: Sports, Baseball
Publisher: Random House (Audio)
Date: August 2004
Length: 6 hours
Ratings:
  • Book Rating: 4/5
Formats:
  • CD

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Overview

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 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 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, 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?

Selected Reviews

Interesting, but that's about it

by John
  • Book Rating: 3/5

Hindsight

by Chiledawg
  • Book Rating: 4/5

More...

Read All 35

Reviews (35)

Interesting, but that's about it

Written by John from Sulphur, LA on August 4th, 2009

  • Book Rating: 3/5

I'm a Michael Lewis fan, and that's the reason I picked up this book. It was interesting most of the way thru but seemed to never end. I was glad when it did.

Hindsight

Written by Chiledawg on May 15th, 2009

  • Book Rating: 4/5

You can tell that Michael Lewis is a full blooded believer in Sabermetrics and not an objective reporter of the story; but like he says in the opening it's a great story. Also, I enjoyed hearing it 8 year later, knowing what the outcome of Billy Bean and Paul DePodesta 2002 draft was.

Moneyball

Written by Anonymous on May 18th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 4/5

I found this book to be entertaining and quite enjoyable, even though I am not much of a baseball fan. It does get bogged down a bit with statistics, but the collection of statistical data, and new ways to look at these statistics is at the heart of this book. I most enjoyed the stories of the players and the look into the rather odd, superstitious psyche of the professional player.

Awesome

Written by Anonymous from Stillwater, MN on May 13th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 5/5

This was awesome. For any fan of the game of baseball here is a behind the scenes look at a team who didn't spend money. While there is some profanity it is used in direct quotes and helps you understand the person talking better.

Moneyball

Written by Craig Jackson on April 6th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 5/5

If you like keeping score when you attend a baseball game you'll enjoy this book. Baseball is a whole new business now.

Moneyball

Written by Bruce Curson on February 8th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Listeners looking for sports (with a bias to baseball), business, and self development nuances will get a little bit of each as they listen to the author narrate his story. The narration by the author is easy and straight forward. There is the potential for some listeners to focus too much on the significance of the statistical theory expressed and/or on feeling comfortable with an unfamiliar story setting if they do not have a prior knowledge of the baseball world and its contemporary players. However, at the end of the day, these listeners will hear a powerful story with excellent underlying messages --- a story that can be thoroughly enjoyed after one discards the dilemma of not fully understanding the numbers and baseball lingo. To those that are baseball enthusiasts and are immersed in that sports love for statistics, your time spent will be a "home run" as the author presents a different twist on what that all means.

See how the best GM in baseball works his magic!

Written by Anonymous from Vacaville, CA on October 17th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 5/5

As an Oakland Athletics fan, this book brings special significance. This book will show you the innermost workings of the best GM in baseball. Interresting stuff and will actually get your heart rate up in the final moments!

Statistics-awesome

Written by Thomas Stanley on October 12th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 5/5

I enjoyed learning about baseball statistics, which had previously seemed uninteresting to me. I find baseball thoroughly uninteresting, but this book is anything but. Well read, too. If I had to pick out a weakness, it is that the author spends a lot of time gushing over how great the Oakland A's management is and not enough on the hows behinds their accomplishments. Also, my own investigations suggest that the interest in better baseball statistics has been around longer than the author suggests. This should not discourage you from a great read.

Nice story

Written by Anonymous on October 2nd, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

An interesting "underdog" story even if you aren't a baseball fanatic (but it helps if you are).

Engaging and informative

Written by Dan Watts from Etobicoke, ON on September 14th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 5/5

I had heard that Moneyball was more of a business book than a baseball book, but I wouldn't classify it as either. Instead, it's a thoroughly entertaining story of a group of renegades and oddballs drawn together in an attempt to disprove some age-old beliefs about how to choose baseball talent. I fell out of love with baseball a long time ago, but I found myself being drawn in by the author's portrait of the characters involved in building the team and their theories about the game. This strikes me as a similar book to Out of Thin Air or the Perfect Storm, in the sense that it is so well written that it can be enjoyed by people who don't care for the subject matter. You'll learn a thing or two about baseball and statistics, but you'll mostly learn about the benefits of unconventional thinking. My one complaint would be that it is abridged. While this is often a benefit for non-fiction books, I couldn't get enough of this one.

Selected Reviews

Interesting, but that's about it

by John
  • Book Rating: 3/5

Hindsight

by Chiledawg
  • Book Rating: 4/5

More...

Read All 35

Author Details

Author Details

Lewis, Michael

"Michael Lewis is the author of several books, including the international bestseller Liar's Poker. He is a contributing editor of The New York Times Magazine, a columnist for Bloomberg News, and a fellow at the University of California-Berkeley. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their newborn daughter."