Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Author: Michael Lewis
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393066231
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

The Comprehensive Guide to Careers in Sports

Author: Glenn M. Wong
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
ISBN: 1449602037
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 609

Book Description
"Provides an overview of what students should consider and expect from the varied career options available to them in the sports industry. This book answers the questions students are most likely to have, including what courses they should take, the areas of study available to them, the salary they can expect to earn after graduation, and how they can get the job of their dreams. This essential guide will help increase sutdents' likelihood of finding careers in the highly competitve sports industry."--

Power and Politics in World Athletics

Author: Jörg Krieger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000400476
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
This book provides the first detailed history of one of the most powerful international sport organisations, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), since 2019 known as World Athletics. The book critically assesses the internal power relations within the IAAF by focusing on the IAAF leadership. Based on extensive archival research, Power and Politics in World Athletics offers a nuanced analysis of the institutionalised strategies that developed as a reflection of the IAAF’s interests and aims to create a broader understanding of the global sport system. With only six presidents in over a century of existence, the IAAF’s leaders had profound impacts on other international institutions, national stakeholders and sporting participants. Through four sections, the book identifies various key turning points in the history of the governing body of athletics, and explores the IAAF’s foundation, the policies of past IAAF presidents, and controversial issues such as doping, corruption and manipulation through a socio-historical lens. The book shows that while anyone could take part in athletics, policies enacted by each president served to ostracize those groups who did not fit into the IAAF’s vision of an equal playing field. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in sport history, sport sociology, the politics of sport, sport management, sport governance, or international organisations.

Pay for Play

Author: Ronald A. Smith
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252035879
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.

Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Author: Charles T. Clotfelter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421121
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 403

Book Description
This book expands on the argument that spectator sports, despite their problems, have become a central function of American universities.

The Athletic Trap

Author: Howard L. Nixon
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421411954
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
The unrivaled amount of cash poured into the college athletic system has made sports programs breeding grounds for corruption while diverting crucial resources from the academic mission of universities. This title clarifies the structure of this trap, describes how higher education institutions fall into it

Athletic Director's Desk Reference

Author: Lopiano, Donna
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 0736082816
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Book Description
Athletic Director’s Desk Reference is the most authoritative and comprehensive resource available for collegiate athletic administrators. This book and web resource guide program administrators in navigating their increasingly complex roles in athletic programs of any size.

Better Off Without 'Em

Author: Chuck Thompson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451616651
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
The author of Smile When You're Lying describes his controversial road trip investigation into the cultural divide of the United States during which he met with possum-hunting conservatives, trailer park lifers and prayer warriors before concluding that both sides might benefit if former Confederacy states seceded.

Contemporary Sport Management

Author: Paul M. Pedersen
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 1718202997
Category : Physical education and training
Languages : en
Pages : 537

Book Description
"Short, factual description of the book (summary of what it includes, without subjective or promotional language.) This classic but thoroughly updated introductory text is designed so students will understand sport management as a field of study and a vibrant professional environment. It emphasizes critical-thinking, ethics, and diversity while providing a broad introduction to the major functional areas and issues that student will encounter in their careers"--

Fair and Foul

Author: D. Stanley Eitzen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442212330
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
With revisions and updates throughout, the fifth edition of Fair and Foul explores America s love of sport and also it s darker side. Updates include further attention to how race, class, and gender relate to the uneven playing field in sports; a new discussion of sexuality as a divisive factor in sport; and numerous new case studies and examples."