Biography of Billy Beane

Economics of sport

March 29, 1962 Billy Beane has become famous beyond u.s. borders above all thanks to the movie "Moneyball" (Moneyball of 2011, Bennett Miller), where his clothes are clothes by actor Brad Pitt. His full name is Lamar William Beane III; born on 29 March of 1962 in San Diego, California, where it grows in a family whose father imposes rigid patterns servicemen, an area in which the parent works, as a naval officer. Already in high school the young Billy excels in sports, especially baseball, football and basketball; Although Stanford University the contacts to recruit him as a football player, Beane decides to quit the sport to devote himself fully to the career as a baseball player. In 1980 is already a player of Major League Baseball in the ranks of the New York Mets. Play until 1989 having way to dress the coats of different teams like the Minnesota Twins, the Detroit Tigers and the Oakland Athletics. After a career as player wishes to continue to stay in the sport as a Manager so in 1990 seeks help from an industry professional, Sandy Alderson, the General Manager of the Athletics; He worked as an observer, to discover new talent, a position he holds until 1993; the following year he became Assistant General Manager of the team. A year later, in 1995, the team owner Walter a. Haas, Jr. dies. The new property is assumed by Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann: for ordering Alderson, Beane, to operate a cut on wages of employees and players. The idea of Alderson is to operate a careful analysis of the value of each player using sabermetrics; the sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through statistics: the term derives from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research (American society for baseball research) and was coined by Bill James, among its early proponent and for a long time his main supporter. The sabermetrics is served, then and now, to locate and establish the best approximation possible to the value of a baseball player in past seasons, but also to try to make a prediction of its value in the future. It has introduced an innovation in the game of baseball in the field of performance measurement, creating a template to export then in several other disciplines, not least the football. Back to the story of Beane, these happens to Alderson as General Manager the day October 17, 1997; Beane continues working with the Oakland Athletics paying particular attention to sabermetrics. Thanks to its analytical work Beane showed how a team can achieve major successes despite players are paid little: Billy Beane becomes so in 2003 object and subject of the bestselling book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" (the art of winning an unfair game), by Michael Lewis. In the book discusses Beane's methods and how he used the principles of sabermetrics to manage the team in a cost effective manner. According to the thesis of the author of the book, the analytical skills to Beane has enabled the company and the team to be successful, despite serious financial problems. The book and Beane's methods have influenced the thinking of other baseball teams, as well as of their own players. The screenplay for the film "Moneyball" mentioned at the beginning, in which Brad Pitt plays Beane, is based on the book. Concerning his philosophy, Billy Beane was able to declare: "This is to evaluate the skills of the players and give them a price. Thirty years ago, stockbrokers were wont to buy shares based strictly on their instincts. Put it this way: anyone in the game of baseball has a pension and can make a choice; There are those who choose a fund manager that handles their retirement by instinct, and there are those who choose to rely on an expert in research and economic analysis. I know which way I chose." The talent and expertise of Beane cross the boundary of baseball, so much so that at the beginning of 2007 the software company NetSuite named him a member of its Board of Directors. In December 2009, the magazine "Sports Illustrated" puts the most important among the ten sports managers Beane decade, a ranking that takes into account any sport.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.