Ben’s Biz Blog: Guest Post! In Which Moneyball Gets Its Comeuppance…

and after that…it’s on to “Come Back, Dr. Caligari”!

Aside from this handful of names, virtually every other scout was referred to by job title, “scout” or “scouts.” What is particularly odd is these nameless entities spoke or acted about 149 times without us knowing who is doing what. When the scouts were somewhat more identifiable, it was by physical attribute. Old/older [31] tops the list, followed by fat [5], vocal [5], folded arms [2], lean [1], pleading [1]. Notice how many of these generic attributes were also rather unappealing. Also notable was how the physical descriptions seem to have been selected for their power to metaphorically reinforce the philosophical differences between the two sides of the room—the forces of ignorance resisting enlightenment.

...Seems as though purpose of chapter 2 is to create an sense of emotional detachment from a certain group of people, namely the scouts. If you can render the opposition less than human, good; if you can demonize it, even better. For centuries, this effective psychological technique has been used in sci-fi (such as the “Borg” of Star Trek: Next Generation), advertising, politics and war.

I’m not sure if this was kept nagging at me the first time. Once my “covert ops” alerts were triggered during the second read, however, it was impossible for me to shake the feeling I was being played. In the end, I cannot help but wonder why Lewis did it? Since I’m not Lewis, I haven’t a clue. All I can offer is my opinion; namely, I would have preferred the chance to decide whether Beane is a great GM or just lucky, or sabermetrics is superior to scouting without the B-movie caricatures. Certainly I would have enjoyed the book considerably more without the syntactical sleight of hand.