I recently read the book “Paths to Glory, How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way” by Daniel Levitt, a Minneapolis-based baseball scholar (and real estate developer) and Mark Armour (happily, a Red Sox fan) and it was really quite interesting and engaging.
Why is it interesting that it was interesting to me? Mostly, because I find baseball incredibly slow and painful to watch more that 3 times a season. Reading about our “national game” is not something I do very frequently.
The book uses both narrative and statistics to compellingly argue the where the competitive edge comes from for baseball teams. It leads to thinking about how those decisions can be made in other area of life. And isn’t baseball supposed to be a metaphor for life and all sorts of other stuff?
Anyway, I highly recommend it and and even bought it for a baseball-nut friend of mine (who says he loved it).
Why did I single Mr. Levitt out when there are co-authors?, you ask. It is because this book got me to purchase his other book “Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty“. I am in the midst of reading it and am giving it a big thumbs-up. Will see if Mr. Armour has written anything else in the near future….