“The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.”
-- Michael Lewis, “Moneyball”
Lewis’ seminal book was subtitled “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.” It’s remarkable in retrospect: Bill James’ “Baseball Abstract” was first published nationally in 1982; “Moneyball” came out in 2003. It took 34 years since James introduced readers to sabermetrics and 13 years since Lewis explained the market inefficiencies Billy Beane’s small-market Oakland Athletics tried to exploit for all 30 front offices to fully enter the modern age of baseball.