Moneyball

  I finally read it.
  Michael Lewis' Moneyball is one of those books that's been floating around for ages.  First published over 10 years ago, it's a book I should have read by now if I'm as big of a baseball fan as I say I am.  Somehow, I kept avoiding it.  Libraries didn't have it, and I could never find a cheap copy.
  I finally ran out of excuses, and since Brad Pitt had already delivered the movie to the big screen, it was time.
 
  The book isn't so much about Billy Beane and the Oakland A's unexpected success.  It's more of a focus on the shifting landscape of today's world, one driven by data and the discoveries that can be found through the data.  The work of Bill James plays a fundamental part of this shift.  Many scouts will cast doubts on a player that doesn't look right.  Billy Beane's system focuses on whether a player can get on base, believing that this singular ability is a predictor of a team's success.  His work is one of the many sparks that is responsible for the important role statistics have in many sports today.

  I think there is a lesson in this book that is far more important than the baseball covered in this book.  (Especially since the A's were never able to capture a World Series, despite great regular season success.  That essentially comes down to poor luck.)

  It's so important to ask big questions about why we think the way we do.  It's easy to keep doing things the way we've always done them, whether we're in a family or a school or a sport or a church.  Tradition is a great thing to fall back into, and tradition can anchor us in the midst of a busy world.  However, it can also be a crutch that prevents us from recognizing new opportunities.  The way we've always done things and the way we've always seen things can limit us from seeing new opportunities before us, simply because they are different.  If I've always read a certain Scripture passage in one way, it's going to take a lot to shift my mind to understand it a different way.  If I have found a certain person lack in honesty, it's going to take a lot for me to trust them.  Internal change is difficult.

  Yet it is important.  I think this is the reason it's so important for us to listen to people who are different than we are, to listen without our defenses raised, and allow ourselves to be challenged.  We don't have to give up everything we believe in, but we need to ask big questions and trust that if the things we believe are true, that can withstand tough questions.