Dave Zirin on "Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love"
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/30/dave_zirin_on_bad_sports_how
The best book I've read on the political economy of baseball (OK, the only one I've read) was a bestseller: "Moneyball," by Michael Lewis, the guy who wrote "Liar's Poker." "Moneyball" shows how the emotionally damaged general manager of the Oakland A's, using statistical methods developed for free by obsessive fans (Bill James being the best-known), attempts to Taylorize baseball's production (run-scoring) process. And he succeeds, for a while.
Lewis has a brilliant, cringe-inducing passage describing how a player named Jeremy Giambi, under orders of the general manager, was put in a position he had never fielded before *during a major league game*. It's a great description of the sort of cruel humiliation that's endured by skilled workers undergoing "rationalization," just not something you'd expect displayed in front of paying customers at an elite level of sport.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> At 05:29 AM 8/20/2010, Alan Rudy wrote:
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>> Back when I'm done, or after a weekend in StL to see the Cardinals.
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> Speaking of baseball in a thread titled profits, I am once again a fan of
> the game rather than a particular team. My fondness for the Angels was
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