Moneyball

Right now, I’m reading a book called Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It starts out about a baseball prospect named Billy Beane, and it tells the story of being a high school baseball prospect, deciding if you’re going to go to college, or become a MLB player straight out of high school. In Billy’s case, he had already committed to Stanford University on a full baseball and football scholarship. He played baseball all through out high school, but stopped playing football after his sophomore year, deciding not to risk any injuries that could affect his playing baseball. Even though he already committed, scouts still tried to talk him out of it and convince him to skip college and play in the big leagues. The scouts eventually succeeded in talking him out of it, and he was the 23^rd overall pick in the 1980 Major League Baseball Draft, taken by the New York Mets. Beane went to Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego, California. Other prospects came out of there, such as Cole Hamels, who is now a starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Hamels was named the MVP of the 2008 World Series. Beane obviously doesn’t go to college, but in the offseasons when he was playing, he took classes at UC San Diego, where he took economics classes. He made his MLB debut on September 13, 1984 for the New York Mets, and his last game in the big leagues was on October 1, 1989 for the Oakland Athletics.  In his 5 years of a big leaguer, he played for 4 teams. When he couldn’t make the team in 1990, he decided he wanted to be an advanced scout. He held that until 1993, when he became the Assistant General Manager. In 1998, he succeeded the General Manager and became the GM himself. He is still the GM now.