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A review by mrdashwood
Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger
4.0
'Buzz' Bissinger uses a three-game series between the St Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in 2003 to describe the thought processes of a major-league baseball manager.
At the time it came out, the book was set up in opposition to Michael Lewis' 'Moneyball', about Tony La Russa's former team, the Oakland A's, a couple of years earlier. Where the Billy Beane A's were mastermined by a data-driven approach, La Russa's Cardinals were shown to rely on a mix of preparation and desire. Bissinger is very subtle about it, however.
La Russa occupies something of an intermediate position between the Moneyball A's and the matchup method described in Earl Weaver On Strategy, which describes managing some forty years ago. La Russa's Cardinals retain some elements of of Weaver's time, but have bought heavily into technology, just like the A's. The difference is that the Cardinals don't look so much at computed data as at video. The video room is where they hope to make a difference through technology, and to some extent I would say that, from the perspective of twelve years later, baseball's technological revolution has been more long-lasting in that form than via the methods described in Moneyball.
The book is written quite engagingly, and switches between the game at hand and the background to it. Recommended to all fans of major-league baseball. It will inform the way you watch the games.
At the time it came out, the book was set up in opposition to Michael Lewis' 'Moneyball', about Tony La Russa's former team, the Oakland A's, a couple of years earlier. Where the Billy Beane A's were mastermined by a data-driven approach, La Russa's Cardinals were shown to rely on a mix of preparation and desire. Bissinger is very subtle about it, however.
La Russa occupies something of an intermediate position between the Moneyball A's and the matchup method described in Earl Weaver On Strategy, which describes managing some forty years ago. La Russa's Cardinals retain some elements of of Weaver's time, but have bought heavily into technology, just like the A's. The difference is that the Cardinals don't look so much at computed data as at video. The video room is where they hope to make a difference through technology, and to some extent I would say that, from the perspective of twelve years later, baseball's technological revolution has been more long-lasting in that form than via the methods described in Moneyball.
The book is written quite engagingly, and switches between the game at hand and the background to it. Recommended to all fans of major-league baseball. It will inform the way you watch the games.