Book Report

"Moneyball" Michael Lewis
Far and away the best sports book I've ever read. It cronicals a season with Billy Beane paired with chapters on the development of statistical analysis in baseball. The structure was similar to the way Moby Dick alternated between chapters of the novel and the history of whaling. It was interesting to read it years after it was written with the knowledge of each player's success or failure. For example, they discuss that year's draft class with players such as Nick Swisher and Jeremy Bonderman. I felt like he was very sympathetic to Beane, but still painted a fairly honest picture of him. The best part of the book were the behind the scenes trade negotiations.

"The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" Michael Lewis
I really enjoy Michael Lewis as a writer, so I figured this one would be good as well. Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher's introduction to football. Oher is a left tackle at Ole Miss and projected top 15 pick in this year's draft. The book not only serves to tell his story, but also explain how left tackles are paid as well as QBs and on occasion, even better (a fact I didn't know beforehand). It follows the same structure as Moneyball, but less dramatically. While Moneyball followed two intertwined story archs, Blind Side doesn't follow a strict timeline of how left tackles grew in importance. Oher was a very quiet, poor, black kid from Memphis who ended up being adopted by a rich white family. He never really attended school until his junior year and had never played football until that point either. The family that took Oher in seems very noble and honest, but I still question their intentions. At one point, Oher asks himself whether they would have taken him in had he not been athletically gifted and I feel like that question is still unresolved. I definitely recommend reading it before the draft to learn the interesting story behind one of the top picks.

"God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back)" Will Leitch
Yep, that's really the title. If you've ever been to the website deadspin.com, this guy is the creator. It isn't surprising that the writer is a blogger since the chapters are fairly short and random. I feel like he took some of his favorite posts and tried to combine them to make this book. While many of them were funny, he lacks focus - at some points, it is just a collection of rants. He divides the book into Players, Owners, Media, and Fans. He is the most vengeful about ESPN, which is understandable because as a website owner, they are his primary competition. I agree that ESPN is kind of the Walmart of the sports industry and there are a lot of things that are wrong with them. But he comes off as a know it all and a sports elitist. Overall, it's funny, but definitely not worth buying. He does get the title for best cover. It's a foam hand with the middle finger sticking up.

"The Education of a Coach" David Halberstam
This is the Bill Belichik book. It's horrible. Absolutely horrible. More boring than you'd think. I don't feel like I know Belichik any more than I did before. I only read about half of it because I couldn't force myself to read the rest.