AGB Footy

ACE ON BASE

Moneyball (The Art of Winning an Unfair Game) is a book about baseball by American sport's writer Michael Lewis.

The thrust of the book is that The Oakland Athletics, a team struggling against the big money advantages enjoyed by the likes of the NY Yankees, Boston Red Socks, Atlanta Braves have been able to stay highly competetive. They could not afford to buy, say, Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson for gazillions of dollars and, instead, had to look extremely closely at the statistics of lesser credentialled players such as Nick Swisher and Scott Hatteberg in an attempt to keep up with the big boys.

Up to now it has proved a reasonably successful strategy.

The architect of this ploy that's taken The As from a struggler in the late nineties to a potential contender in the naughties is former prodigy Billy Beane. A precocious talent as a youngster who apparently didn't have the right attitude to cut it in the big leagues as a player, but who is seen as something of a wunderkind as an administrator.

The main statistic according to Beane and his off-siders, is Percentage On Base. A stat which refers to the ability of a batter to get himself into play regardless of whether he hits the ball, or not. Key to this is the batter's self discipline in being willing to wait for the right one to hit, and just as willing to accept a walk. Hatteberg is a gun here. It's a batter's equivalent of playing the percentages.

Also covered in the book is the notion that while raw talent is undoubtedly a strong pointer to whether a player will make it in the big leagues, there is much to be gained from in-depth analysis of the less obviously talented draftees.

This, of course, may -- that is may -- have ramifications in Australian Rules. I stress may, because at The Athletics, a batter cannot continue to swing at bad pitches because Beane will sack him as quick as you can say "three strikes and you're gawn!" That can't happen here. Nevertheless, the book is one that hasn't escaped the attention of quite a few pundits in Aussie Rules. The latest is Gerard Healy in today's Herald Sun ...

Statistics add up

MONEYBALL, written by sports journalist Michael Lewis, is a must-read for anyone working in the sports industry.

It's about how a one-time failed star recruit Billy Beane became a manager of Major League baseball side the Oakland As and turned a poor, down-and-out franchise into a raging success.

At the time most put it down to luck, but those on the inside knew it was all about mathematics and a new way of thinking about the sport.

Beane didn't recruit big names – they couldn't be because Billy didn't have any money – but he picked up players that statistically fitted his analysis of what won games.

I read this book 18 months ago and have read it again since, and following an All-Australian team selection meeting last week I began to think of Moneyball again.

Healy goes on to make a case, using statistics, for compiling his list for All Australian honours.

I, too, read the book last year and found it to be an enjoyable, easy read. And while I agree with it's premise (different stats matter) I find I'm getting increasingly tired of the experts here referring to it without caveat.

Sure, stats do matter. But the way of looking at stats in Moneyball cannot be done so in isolation, and then directly transferred here. It must be seen as extra information to what they already know about a much smaller talent pool.

There are two main flaws associated with using the strategies of Moneyball in Australian Rules. One, hitting analysis is not comparable to the analysis needed in a contact sport. All it does is engender new streams of thought. And two, I've never yet heard one pundit here state the bleeding obvious. Namely that The As, while they've managed to win more than 90 games (55%) in each of the past five seasons, they haven't won The World Series in that time. Nor have they even made the play-offs every year. On the other hand, one of the players The As traded away is Johnny Damon. Damon has become an integral and popular member of the Boston Red Sox (a much derided team in the book) who, in fact, after more than eighty years HAVE managed to win a World Series.

And rest assured, if Beane's strategies prove successful, they won't be his alone for long. The big clubs will adopt them and everyone will be back to square one.

THE GREATEST POST EVER

My favourite sports journo type writer person, The Great Man Leapin' Larry L, the Sunday Age's Superstar of Scrawl, bangs out The Greatest Article Ever (super superb CAPITALS included).

But first, a couple of points.

One; personally I couldn't care less whether Ten shows Carlton v Collingwood or Port v Adelaide, but if it was me running Ten, I'd show the Pies/Blues game into Braxopolis. And two; pity Leapster couldn't squeeze in Dwayne "from the paint" Russell for a slap about the hipster chops. Then again, it would have been impossible to stop at just Dwayne-Oh; the list of clichéd cooloid fuckwits goes on and on, like, forever dudes.

Who cares about us? Not Ten

There is s a tide in the affairs of media sport coverage, which, taken at the flood, can make you a little seasick about the whole damn business.

There comes a time when one has heard sufficient prattle about "the blowtorch", which sporting idols are always purportedly "under", to start wondering what became of the pumps they USED to be under, let alone when in Hades someone outlawed the words "pressure" and "scrutiny".

A time when one may tire ever so slightly of the usual sports media suspects big-noting and testosteroning at interminable length all over the shop, in the pure pursuit of "good fun", as long as it's lamebrained fun at someone else's expense.

Not to mention their media boofhead compadres - the pundits - some of whom have no definable sense of humour whatsoever, but have imbibed sufficiently of their own bathwater to constitute a hazard to shipping, and have heads visible from Mars.

There probably came a time at least two years back where actual sports fans reached an apex of gastric reflux over the merciless soap-operaisation of sport, where we're apparently obliged to care about "scores" made in the bedroom region than the kind still occasionally made on the field of play.

One may grow palpably bone-weary at being told, AGAIN, what sort of shot a television camera is making (useless information - we can see it), how good a camera shot is (an insult to the intelligence - we can see it), or that most spectacularly thick-eared of pandemic TV vulgarisms - telling us that whatever's coming up next is a "great story". (Actually, we'll be the ones deciding that, thanks very much.)

When it comes to the flyblown showbiz hipsterisms ("You're working beautifully", "You're travelling well", "Not a good look", hello James Brayshaw), or everyone down to the guy who brought in the doughnuts being referred to as "a superstar" if not "the Great Man", or a television station wilfully withholding available information about a time-clock on the apparently Jack Nicholson-inspired basis that "You can't HANDLE the truth", the temptation to invite all parties concerned to stick it right up their jumpers - or somewhere thereabouts - becomes entirely overwhelming.

So full credit to anyone, at the grumpy peak of what Shakespearean scholar Benny Hill used to call "The Winter of out Discotheque", who can find a way to make matters appreciably more irritating. Step up and take a bow Channel Ten.

Last week Ten confirmed that, in round 20, in Melbourne, it will broadcast the Super-Ultra Smackdown thingo match between Port Adelaide and The Crows in preference to a Carlton-Collingwood game. Amazing.

"National game," Ten Said. "Finals chances," Ten said.

"Oranges, porranges, who cares?" responded the home viewer, thoughtfully.

Welcome to scenic Melbourne. Bottom line: Collingwood-Carlton ALWAYS matters here, and Adelaide-Port - well, with any luck, there's a half-decent Eddie Murphy movie on another channel.