Moneyball in the News Again
A round-up of books from the weekend's papers
If you could get beyond the "Jonny returns" frenzy that was dominating the weekend papers, then there were one or two books getting mentioned in the news.
There's a lengthy and quite interesting article by David Runciman in Observer Sports Monthly focusing on the impact American sports science is having has had on football managers in the UK. Although primarily using Michael Lewis's excellent Moneyball as the basis for the article, David Halberstam's The Eduction of a Coach and Steve Goldman's Mind Game also get mentions.
Also in Observer Sports Monthly are brief reviews of Manchester Disunited and Believe in the Sign.
In the Observer itself, Kevin Mitchell, author of War, Baby writes about the contrasting fortunes of Benn and McClellan in the years following their epic fight. In the article Mitchell also makes reference to a possible documentary on the fight and its aftermath based on his original book. He didn't confirm whether it was progressing but let's hope so. Sport could do with more interesting and thoughtful documentaries.
Over in the Sunday Times, Paul Kimmage interviews the legendary Joe Namath. Kimmage normally spends too much of his interviews talking about himself for my liking, but he takes a bit more of a back seat than normal and the result is an interesting portrait of Namath. Plenty of quotes from Mark Kriegel's acclaimed study of Namath appear as well. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be readily available at the moment, but if you do track down a copy (or want us to try for you) then it's well worth a read.
Naturally enough there's plenty of debate concerning Italian Football in the aftermath of Friday's violence in Sicily. The always interesting Gabriele Marcotti, author of The Italian Job, provides one of the more perceptive articles.
Talk of Marcotti reminds me that I've been meaning to mention The Game, the football podcast from The Times for a while now. There's quite a few football podcasts available and it's largely a matter of personal preference as to what you prefer. This one is my preferred choice. Incase you don't know, Danny Kelly hosts the show and his two main guests are the aformentioned Marcotti as well as Guillem Balague, author of A Season on the Brink.
It's an authoritative line up and provides sensible debate without the hype that's so often prevalent. They're ably supported by statistician Bill Edgar, although they could do with reducing the overworked "statisticians laboratory" gags. Apart from that (and the recent horror of Alyson Rudd's singing) it's well worth checking out.
About This Entry
‘Moneyball in the News Again’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Mon, 5th February 2007 at 16:33:14 GMT and filed under in the news.
