Bock on Moneyball

The always perceptive Wally Bock looks at the real lesson of "Moneyball." An excerpt:

The book is a bit more nuanced. You'll learn about how the analysis movement on the A's was started by Sandy Alderson who was the GM before Beane and who introduced Beane to the basics and the work of Bill James. And you'll learn that the need to do something different, the "mother of invention" in this case, occurred when the estate of Walter Haas, sold the team to a partnership that was going to cut salaries in an attempt to make the it profitable.

The basics make for a good story. Unlikely hero takes over awful team, comes up with a new way to choose players and leads the team to victory. And that sort of happened.