OK book tainted by author's rabid Red Sox fanhood

books:


	• Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top Seth Mnookin Simon & Schuster, 2006 - 504 pages average customer review:based on 34 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Experts Are Wrong

Mnookin nicely reminds us that the experts - both on the inside and outside - often don't know what they are talking about. A great book.

Hear From the Red Sox Managers

Dispel some of the rumors surrounding the Boston Red Sox with this behind-the-scenes look at the team's management.

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OK book tainted by author's rabid Red Sox fanhood

What I hoped for was a sort of "Moneyball, the sequel" about the 2002 sale of the Red Sox and the building of the 2004 (and now 2007) World Series champions. What I got was an OK look at those topics, but tainted by an author who is a rabid and admitted Red Sox fan for whom this book was "the chance of a lifetime."

Mnookin does mention the hiring of baseball stat king Bill James and briefly talks about the Moneyball-theories of Billy Beane and his short-lived hiring as GM of the Sox, but he never explains how subsequently-hired young GM Theo Epstein used those stat theories to build the Sox. For example, Mnookin introduces the "hustle" stat that James worked up for the team, but then never shows how that stat was ever used to bring in new hustling players, let current slackers go, and shape the game-management decisions of Manager Francona. Again, Mnookin says that Francona was hired as a new-thinking manager open to Moneyball theories (unlike old-school Grady Little), but gives no examples.

This is a shame, because the opportunities were apparently there for Mnookin to write that book, as he was given an all-access inside pass to Fenway and team offices, short of exposing any proprietary financial documents. Mnookin's fanhood limited his conception and scope. He seemed too much enthralled with his insider status to shake free of gee-whiz season and series recaps to write the much better book that was available to him.

Red Sox fans may enjoy this "insider" look from one of their own. Baseball fans who hoped like I did for a more serious look into the application of stat-driven management should be forewarned. Maybe Michael Lewis can be convinced to write a proper sequel from his more-dispassionate stance.

See my Moneyball review here:

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

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Whatever happened to the Idiots?

Ever wonder what happened to that self-proclaimed gang of "idiots" that aimed to do what we all knew could not be done, but we believed in them anyway? Who were those guys? What happened to them? Why did they leave? What brought Johnny Damon to the Yankees? Why did Pedro sign with the Mets? What ever happened to Kevin "Cowboy up" Millar? And who was that bulbous little man with the huge head and huge smile seen on virtually every post-2004 Red Sox publicity stunt?

These are the questions you have been asking yourself. This is the stuff of myth and religion, the stuff of Red Sox belief. And now, in Feeding the Monster, these questions and more are finally answered.

What Mnookin reveals behind the Ruby Red curtain is an ownership-managemant-promotional gang that make decisions on the basis of science, not sentiment. The Idiots, we learn, were growing old, bitter, and complacent. They may have had great chemistry, and fans may have loved them, but in 2004 they were an anomoly--a statistical outlier. According to Mnookin, the Brain Trust knew that the value of the Red Sox could not be compromised by player popularity: Franchise decisions had to be made on the basis of intelligence, "good intelligence." The bottom line was that historical patterns demonstrate that winning teams are young teams, with strong arms, and a high on-base percentage. By the end of 2004, Keith Foulke's knees were shot, Pedro's arm was ready to fall off, Damon was old, Trot Nixon was ancient, and Kevin Millar was no longer funny: He was annoying. If history was right, then the idiots had to go.

Feeding the Monster provides an absoutely mesmerizing, insider chronicle of franchise operations and player shenanigans leading up to and after the 2004 season (the reprint edition extends the account through to spring 2007). The book is rich in detail. All I can add is that when read against the backdrop of any given regular season, Feeding the Monster will provide a deeply satisfying, entertaining narrative that helps to explain the logic underpinning the crazy, soap opera of the Boston Red Sox.

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These Aren't Your Grandfather's Sox

Taking the long view, as Seth Mnookin does at the beginning of this piece of reportage, the Boston Red Sox are a failed franchise, a broken watch.

Much like the famous New Yorker cover that maps Manhattan at the center of the universe with other, lesser places marked as specks on the horizon, Mnookin's story centers on the team that John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino assembled to change that legacy. Off in the irrelevant distance are a dueling Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee, an oafish Joe Cronin, a drunken Tom Yawkey, an overrated and ultimately inconsequential Ted Williams, and some guys called Yaz and Pudge and Pesky. From the get-go, this is not a work of Sawks idolatry.

In telling a front-office story, Mnookin sets himself a difficult task. The rise and fall of management teams makes interesting if somewhat limited reading for the type of reader who subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, but it is no simple oversight that publication lacks a sports page to cover the teams that perform on the field. For those who follow the daily exploits of their hometown favorites, owners and managers generally are figures to be reviled. It is necessary, then, for Mnookin as the teller of what is, after all, a heroic sports tale to jump back and forth between the people to whom he has access -- the suits -- and those to whom he clearly does not -- the players. As a result, we get only caricatures of those who are in fact the face of the franchise: a brooding, Hamlet-like Garciaparra; a blowhard Schilling; a proud and fragile-egoed Martinez; a whacked-out Ramirez; a universally beloved Pappi. Is there any magic here? Sadly, no. Like other sports franchises in modern times, baseball teams -- Red Sox included -- mix and match from year to year with few loyalties and scant long term vision. To hear Mnookin tell it, the club brass might just as well have been trading soybean futures.

Interesting, yes. Compelling, no.

The book is written well and carefully, with some exceptions: were he still alive, no doubt Bobby Bonds would be surprised to learn that Willie Mays is Barry's grandfather. Its background and context give it far greater depth than a compendium of clips from sports pages covering the same subject matter. As a journalist, one suspects that Mnookin disdains his peers on the Red Sox beat. Peter Gammons is the only writer who gets favorable mention, and one interesting but underdeveloped motif of the book is the love-hate relationship -- mostly hate, it seems -- between the team and the writers who cover it.

As hot stove reading, this book is good. But it likely will be forgotten as soon as pitchers and catchers report.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Seth Mnookin was given access never before granted to a reporter for this fascinating inside account of the Boston Red Sox. As a result he has written perhaps the best book yet about a professional sports team in America.

Feeding the Monster shows what it takes to win a championship, both on and off the field. Seth Mnookin spent mornings in the front office, afternoons in the clubhouse, and evenings in the owners' box. He learned how the Sox persuaded Curt Schilling to sign, why Nomar Garciaparra resented his teammates, and what led to Pedro Martinez's acrimonious exit. He knows the real story behind Theo Epstein's brief departure and witnessed the development of his rift with Larry Lucchino. And in a new epilogue, Mnookin examines the 2006 offseason, including the negotiations for Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka.

In a juicy narrative that is filled with thrilling detail, Feeding the Monster peels back the curtain to show what it means to be a part of a major league sports team today.

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