Imagination in Sports

The death this week of Steve Jobs, and the many testimonials to his leadership and creative genius, reminded us just how rare the qualities of risk-taking and innovative thinking are in sports today. Einstein famously stated that imagination is more important than knowledge.

During the course of many conversations over the years with sports figures and sports business executives, I occasionally would ask them where they thought the imagination in sports could be found. And who, exactly, were the bold thinkers who dared to deviate from conventional wisdom. Here are some of their responses:

“That’s a very good question, said Daniel Okrent, the former ombudsman for the New York Times. “I would like to think that it’s in the mind of coaches and managers approaching things in innovative ways. I certainly think that the Billy Beane approach to putting together a baseball team took a great deal not only of imagination, but as much imagination does in a hidebound area, it takes courage as well. And he showed great success.

“It’s interesting to me looking at any sport for how it’s played today, and you look at it 25 years ago, and how all these sports have changed in major ways. And I think that’s all the product of a sort of evolutionary imagination in the heads of excellent coaches and managers.”

Said Sean McManus, the president of CBS Sports, “It’s a lot more challenging because everyone is doing such an unbelievably good and sophisticated job, whether it’s cable or network sports television. It’s really difficult to distinguish yourself. You can try some new production techniques or new technology, but basically we’re all doing an excellent job, and it’s more and more difficult to use your imagination to come up with new ideas.

“A lot of the imagination is coming on putting together the best quality broadcast team that you can. It’s why we moved Greg Gumbel into the studio and Jim Nantz out to do the football games. That, I think, in some ways took more imagination than coming up with the next great graphic or piece of music to use. Imagination is trying to distinguish your telecast from what everyone else is doing, especially when everyone else is doing such a good job.”

Jim Nantz, the No. 1 play-by-play man for CBS on the NFL, NCAA basketball, and golf, said, “I think everyone’s still trying to figure out how they can interface with technology, with the Internet, where to take their sports and reach even greater masses. As we sit here on the heels of these landmark TV deals in the NFL, you wonder how in the world the NFL can ever try to go beyond and top this.

“What seems to be kind of a niche thing is everybody having their own controlled broadcast system, whether it’s the NBA Network or the NFL Network. It will be fascinating to look in the next generation where they will be able to take those products. But I think that the leagues and the PGA Tour and so on are all trying to find a way for mass expansion through the Internet, and I guess that’s the next thing to come.”

Marv Albert, who has memorably worked virtually every major broadcast event in sports, said, “I think in sports television, there really is imagination, despite… sometimes too much graphically and too many attempted innovations. But on the other hand, when you look back…I find in watching some of the games that have been done in the past be it on YES or ESPN Classic or NBA TV or NFL TV, you see the difference.

“It’s unbelievable, even from a few years ago, how far they’ve come in graphics and the look and what the camera angles are. Just when you think not much more can be done, when you go back five years ago, the strides that they have made are monumental.”

Sandy Alderson, general manager of the New York Mets, looked beyond the media. At the time of our conversation, Alderson, then the CEO of the San Diego Padres, said, “I think the imagination in many ways is being exercised in the commissioner’s office. If you look back over the last 10 or so years, a lot of the innovations have come at the league level.

“Whether it’s inter-league play or unbalanced schedule, modest realignment, reduction in the time of game, closer management of umpiring…a lot of those things have happened in the commissioner’s office on commissioner Selig’s watch. So, I think a lot of the innovation that’s taken place in the game in recent years has been institutional more than originating with individual clubs or management styles.”

“Some of [the imagination] is in marketing,” said Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. “Teams market a little bit differently, but a lot of the imagination has to be how you put your team together, and how you can envision them functioning as a team. I think most franchises select individual talent and then try to have the coach put them all together and be successful.

“In reality, you’ve probably got to do it the other way. You’ve got to try to figure out how to put a team together. There are so many variables with a team—in terms of talent, ego, strengths and weaknesses, and chemistry—that I think that’s where you have to use your imagination and sometimes be willing to do things that people may not think are the right thing, but in the long run create a better team vs. the best group of individual talent.”

Annika Sorenstam Takes Her Message to Harlem

In 15 years as a professional, Annika Sorenstam established herself as the dominant player in the history of women’s golf. In addition, she has participated in golf-course design and started an apparel collection as well as a financial group to advise professional athletes. Away from the game, Sorenstam is a global ambassador for the sport who devotes her time and attention to health initiatives and instruction for youngsters through the Annika Foundation and the Annika Academy.

In an interview earlier this year, we talked about the bold originals in the games, all too often a contradiction in terms in a sports world populated by copycats and risk-averse conservatives.

“For me, the independent thinkers in golf have always been Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Greg Norman,” Sorenstam said. “They have all been successful athletes who have taken their knowledge and their passion in different ways. They have been my role models. Their success in golf, of course, set them up to build a business or to extend their work into golf-course design or other pursuits apart from golf. That sets them apart from others who just play golf or [disappear] after they stop playing.

“Outside golf, I can think of Emmitt Smith, John Elway, and Billie Jean King who have succeeded away from sports. Arnold Schwarzennegger has been successful in sports. Well…bodybuilding, but he went from there into acting and then politics,” she said. “I admire people who work hard and are successful and have a lot of interests [outside sports] and contribute one way or another away from their sport.”

Sorenstam might well have included herself among that field. An independent thinker and philanthropist, she has stayed on course after golf to share her gifts and her success to try to improve the quality of life for others.

Yesterday, Sorenstam visited The Children’s Storefront, an independent school serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, in Harlem as part of a wellness transformation project led by two Cal State Chico professors and organized by the Annika Foundation, SPARK, and The First Tee. Sorenstam spoke to the students about physical fitness, diet, and the intrinsic lessons and values of sports and participated in a series of activities with the children, including jump rope.

Mark Attanasio: From the Bronx to the Brewers

The Yankees are not the only New Yorkers competing for a spot in the World Series this fall. Bronx native and Columbia law school graduate Mark Attanasio, the chairman and principal owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, will host the Arizona Diamondbacks this afternoon in the opening game of the National League division series.

Attanasio, who quotes from “Faust” (“Linger awhile, thou art so fair”) and cites “The Divine Comedy” as his favorite book and the Beatles’ White Album as his favorite music, made his mark as an investment banker. He bought the team from MLB commissioner Bud Selig in September 2004. Twelve months later, the Brewers went 81-81, ending a string of 12 straight losing seasons while their team valuation rose, according to Forbes magazine.

I spoke with Attanasio shortly after that. One topic he discussed at the time seems as relevant now as it did then. He came to baseball from investment banking, where he had to manage risk. How did he manage risk with the Brewers?

“You have to look at that both from the baseball and the business sides of the equation,” Attanasio said. “From the baseball side, you start by trusting good management. That involves not just the manager and GM, but also the scouts, the training staff — all the people who make up the baseball operation.

“[In 2005], our team had the lowest number of disability days of any team in the National League, which is really a testament to our doctors and training staff but also to the scouts and GM, because we are trying to get players who are durable and not injury-prone. I think the No. 1 risk you have on the baseball side in injuries. We work hard at trying to contain that risk, which is inherently a challenge.

“Obviously as well on the baseball side you need to manage your payroll in such a way that you don’t concentrate it too much in a handful of players. One thing I’m learning as an owner is you really use that 25-man roster, especially in the National League with no DH, you use every player on that roster. The 25th guy can affect the outcome of games. Many times, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

What about managing risk on the business side, I asked.

“On the business side, frankly it’s the business of baseball — outside of player payroll, which is the biggest expense — it’s no different from any other business in terms of managing,” Attanasio said. “You have a handful of revenue streams, which are attendance, media, parking, and concessions. You share revenues, both in terms of revenue sharing and things you get from national sources in baseball. And then expenses. You want your revenues to exceed your expenses.”

Sports Expendables

In “The Mikado,” the Lord High Executioner Ko-Ko compiles his little list of “society offenders” who, if executed, “would not be missed.” Among other expendables, he notes, “There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs [and] all people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs.” I once asked several notable sports figures and writers what they would not miss if it were eliminated from sports, and got a range of responses.

The late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Halberstam said, “I think noise at a sports event is terrific, but I wouldn’t miss the gratuitous noise of rock-and-roll stuff that they put on all the time. I would not miss the departure of the DH. I wouldn’t miss the celebration of self. I wouldn’t miss Barry Bonds, if he hit a home run, pausing to admire himself before going to first base. Not just Barry Bonds, but everybody else who does it. I believe in the old idea of get down to first base and then you can break into your trot. The manifestations of ego, the sack dances…. Some of those emotions are really genuine, but an awful lot of them we could do without. There’s too much self-celebration based on too little evidence.”

Daniel Okrent, the former ombudsman for the New York Times, said, “I wouldn’t miss the shouting, and when I say shouting I mean not just the broadcasters but also the strutting and shouting of the players — the me-me-me attention that they get. I wouldn’t miss the home-run game. I like the small-ball game better, but we’re in a home-run-game era. I wouldn’t miss the language of war being applied to football, which I think began in the Nixon administration and hasn’t left.”

Armen Keteyian, the head of research for CBS News, said, “I wouldn’t miss poker on television if it left the planet. Nah, that’s not a sport.” Echoing Okrent, he added, “I wouldn’t miss the self-aggrandizement, the look-at-me culture that has long past crept in and has now buried in many respects what is really pure and good. And anything that has to do with sports and reality television. This, to me, is cringe TV.”

Sandy Alderson, now the GM of the New York Mets, had just one item on his list: organ music.

Likewise, John King of CNN offered the briefest of lists: “The wave.”

New York Times columnist Harvey Araton said he would not miss the three-point shot. NBA Hall-of-Famer Jerry West agreed and added, “I can do without the dunk shot, too, by the way. One point for a dunk.”

Fellow basketball Hall-of-Famer Joe Dumars said, “The touch fouls. The game is so physical, and then all of a sudden a touch foul is called. That’s why you see guys saying, ‘You have got to be kidding!’”

Former New York Times columnist Ira Berkow, said, “Every time a guy gets fouled in basketball, he argues. Every time a batter gets a close pitch, he looks like he’s going to run at the pitcher.”

Steve Kerr, former President and GM of the Phoenix Suns and now a broadcaster for Turner Sports, said he wouldn’t miss “that little circle underneath the basket where the players take charges. I wouldn’t miss time-outs. I wouldn’t miss the circuses that go on at half-time of NBA games.”

Peter Gammons of the MLB Network said that he would not miss the DH. “And I’m not an old-schooler,” he said. “I just think the game is more versatile without the DH. I think one rule is better for the game. It’s silly to have separate rules, with American League teams having the DH in National League parks and vice versa.” 


Sean McManus, President of CBS Sports, said he would not miss “any performance-enhancing drugs — an absurd phrase. I read that as being cheating. It’s a stain that’s been put on the entire sports world.”

National Magazine Award-winning writer Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated compiled a short list: “Bats that break so easily. I have a real fear that somebody’s going to lose an eye before they get a grip on this. I wouldn’t miss PSLs. I wouldn’t miss baseball games starting at 8:30 and ending after midnight and days off in between tournaments and games and playoffs and World Series where they just stretch out forever. I wouldn’t miss boxing, you know, with the total way that it’s legislated and run.”

Broadcaster Marv Albert said he wouldn’t miss “some of the long pre-game shows where the same stuff is being discussed over and over. People are making predictions. I always feel, ‘What do predictions mean?’ I realize they’re filling time, and it’s a very inexpensive way to fill time because you don’t have to spend money on production pieces. But there are so many people, particularly during the football season, making predictions. I don’t think it has any significance at all. It’s a guess. You may have all the information in the world, but it’s a time-filler. I wouldn’t miss that.”

John Walsh, Executive Editor at ESPN, said, “The clichéd, robot-like responses to questions by athletes, coaches and owners, and everybody in sports. That would be right up there.”

Sports agent Tom Reich said, “Some of the questions that are asked of the players are so far afield, are so inappropriate, it’s like nails across a chalkboard. Sometimes I wonder how the players can possibly deal with some of the questions.”

One-on-One With Billy Beane

Excerpts of this interview ran in SBJ in 2004. The revised interview reflects a conversation that continued during the summer of 2011.

Billy Beane was a first-round pick in 1980 by the New York Mets, one of four teams with whom he played a total of 148 games in six seasons (1984-89) and compiled a career .219 batting average. He became a scout for the Oakland A’s in 1990, assistant general manager in 1994, and then succeeded Sandy Alderson as the team’s GM in 1998.

Beane never bought into the unimaginative groupthink that permeates the game, the copycat philosophy embodied by so many timid managers of “If it’s not broken, we’ll try to fix it.” During his front-office tenure with the small-market A’s, Beane has had to be creative in analyzing and managing the team’s finances, talent evaluation, and baseball product. In doing so, he has defied some of the game’s conventional thinking. Beane’s approach and methodology are discussed in the book Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. The film version, starring Brad Pitt as Beane, had its premiere on September 23, 2011.

Despite the free-agent defection of All-Star players over the years and a payroll that is far less than that of the highest-spending teams, Beane has been able to keep the A’s competitive. He has always been modestly pragmatic in his approach.

“We’re not telling anyone how to do their business,” Beane told me. “We’re going to do it our way that allows us to compete in what is a chaotic market.” He added, “I’ve got a responsibility to my owner to make sure that the money he spent is being well-spent and he’s getting some return on it. We have to function as a business, not just as a baseball team… We’re just a small-market team, and I’m the keeper of the gate when it comes to having responsibility with what my owner spends.”

Fast forward several years. Beane told the New York Times, “There are a lot of smart guys running teams now, and a lot of the guys who are smart also have a lot of money. That’s a pretty tough combination to go against. We’ve all started valuing the same things.”

I first spoke with Beane in 2004 and again at different times over the course of several seasons. A voracious reader, he always spoke enthusiastically about the books he was reading or planning to read during the summer. I remember the first time we spoke. I had arranged a day and time during spring training to call him in his office. When I did, his secretary told me, “He’s on the other phone.” She took my name and number and hung up. Moments later, my phone rang. It was Beane. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If I knew it was you, I would have taken the call.”
“I thought maybe you were in the middle of negotiating a blockbuster trade. I didn’t want to interrupt,” I told him. 
“Nah, it’s not the right time for that,” he said.

Q. Is there an offseason in baseball anymore? Do you take any time off from the job?

Beane: Yeah, for about five or six hours on Christmas day, and even that is not a guarantee. No, there really isn’t. It’s become a 24-hour, 365-day job. Some times are slower than others, but by and large there’s always something to be done and always someone to call.

Q. It’s a practice in art school to copy the old masters. You seem to have made a practice not to copy the old masters in baseball. 
Beane: I guess it depends on who you qualify as the old masters. There are some people in the industry who have had a tremendous impact on me and my career. First and foremost is Sandy Alderson. But some of the things we're doing here are not that far off from some of the things the Dodgers were doing years ago. People think on‑base percentage as a statistic is sort of in vogue now, but it’s something the Yankees focused on years and years ago. So, while some of it may be viewed as new, in many cases it’s not that new. What we’re trying to do is examine everything and every dollar we spend to make sure we’re getting the greatest return on our capital. 

Q. In Moneyball, Michael Lewis wrote, “The old scouts are like a Greek chorus; it is their job to underscore the eternal themes of baseball. The eternal themes are precisely what Billy Beane wants to exploit for profit by ignoring them.”

Beane: As it applies to how we spend our capital, we're going to do it where we have the least amount of risk and the most amount of success. When you’re in Oakland and you’re splitting a market, you’re one of the smallest markets in baseball, you can’t afford to go on the roulette wheel and place everything on double zero and hope that it gets a return. Every dollar we send out we want to see some return on it, and we want to do it objectively. It is similar to the way an actuary or an insurance company would set insurance rates. Or the other example we use: We are going to play blackjack and, if we can, we’re going to deal the cards. Does that mean every decision is going to be right?  No, but we want to place the odds in our favor.

Q. Nonetheless some of this was original thinking. Baseball has long had a conservative streak. 

Beane: We’re not telling anyone how to do their business. We’re going to do it our way that allows us to compete in what is a chaotic market. Which in some respects, a chaotic market, is good for us. It allows us to take advantage of the inefficiencies. 

Q. Is it oversimplifying to say that college players are a lower risk than high school players?

Beane: I don’t know if you can put it any more simply. Not only that, but you get a quicker return. There’s a return on your asset probably more immediate than there is with a younger player. The bottom line is, there’s more data from which to make a decision. That’s really what it comes down to. We’re not good enough to walk onto a high school baseball field and watch some kid and predict what's going to happen. We’re just acknowledging we need more data from which to make a decision. The more info we have, the better decisions we think we're going to make. 

Q. Your approach is less risky than that of others. 

Beane: That’s what I would say. Listen, I’ve got a responsibility to my owner to make sure that the money he spent is being well-spent and he’s getting some return on it. We have to function as a business, not just as a baseball team. 

Q. Years ago, Davey Johnson... 

Beane: I always thought Davey Johnson was one of the most underrated baseball minds. He was a roving instructor and then was the manager with the Mets when I came up. Here was a guy who was not only a very good major league player, but he was also a guy with a mathematics degree from Texas A&M. So, he had an analytical approach. And he played under my favorite manager of all‑time, Earl Weaver. I always thought Davey never got the recognition as a manager he deserved. He won everywhere he went: Cincinnati, New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles. I've always been a big admirer of Davey Johnson.

Q. It must have been an interesting player/manager relationship between Johnson and Weaver. 

Beane: I never had the privilege of meeting Weaver, but there was a brilliance in the simplicity, just in the way he ran the team. He was a proponent of the three‑run home run as a much more efficient way to score runs. He wasn’t a proponent of losing outs on the base paths. He wasn't someone who believed in losing outs by bunting someone over in the second inning. He understood the value of an out. 

Q. Selena Roberts in the New York Times wrote about how threatening an alternate view is to baseball’s theology: "It’s a threat to inept owners and/or a certain baseball commissioner who have used their small‑market woes as habitual excuses for futility. It’s a threat to romanticized scouts whose legends are built on a five percent success rate."

Beane: We’re just a small‑market team, and I'm the keeper of the gate when it comes to having responsibility with what my owner spends. I find it somewhat humorous that with a market of this size, someone would be so concerned with what we do. 

Q. You’re a small‑market team that has had success. There is a built‑in underdog appeal. 

Beane: Well, I think the greatest compliment this organization can take is that we’re no longer viewed as an underdog. There’s now an expectation level placed upon us. There’s an assumption that we are going to, and should, succeed. Some people have forgotten about the payroll, and I take that as a compliment to the organization. We are a small‑market club and one of the lowest payrolls in the game. We still continue to lose players because we can’t afford to sign them, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing from a business standpoint. But I think the bar has been raised for us. 

Q. The A’s have lost not just talented players, but also key personnel off the field. Has it been difficult to rebuild the front office? 

Beane: It is probably harder to rebuild there. I’m no revolutionary. Sandy was the one who started this whole thing. I sort of view us all as coming off that tree, because [Alderson's] background was the most unique: a Harvard law graduate and Marine officer who came into the game as a legal counsel. The thing that I’m probably most proud of here in this organization are the people who have left. I shouldn’t say left. They’ve been pursued by others to run other franchises. That’s the greatest compliment you can have. I would love nothing more than to see a number of people who work here in parallel positions to myself or even higher. 

Q. Has your playing experience—a first‑round pick in 1980 by the Mets—given you any kind of advantage or unique perspective? 

Beane: Having played the game gives you some credibility in the locker room. But what I’ve drawn from my playing experience are the people I’ve met. Some very bright people. Guys I mentioned already. Davey Johnson, in a strange way, has had a very big impact. And Frank Cashen, Andy MacPhail, and Bill Lajoie. I always thought I was like Forrest Gump. In my brief career, I played under Sparky Anderson, Davey Johnson, Tom Kelly, and Tony LaRussa, all guys who have a chance to go to the Hall of Fame or have been successful in most people’s judgments. That’s where the advantage of playing came for me. The one thing I don’t get caught up in is the idea that I played the game and therefore I know. Being in the front office is completely different, and you’re not giving enough credibility to some people who have not played and are very bright, capable people. 

Q. You have said, as much as anything, we don’t complain about what we don’t have. We focus on what we do have and we make the most of the opportunities we get. 

Beane: When Sandy was here, when I was working for him, we knew with our payroll we weren’t going to be able to put together the perfect player at every position. In most cases, we couldn’t even find the perfect player in one position. So, we had to look for players who at least did one thing really well and then had to find a way to put them into the jigsaw puzzle. 

Q. Out of necessity you have had to be imaginative.
Beane: The great thing about being in this market is that it does force you to be creative and it also puts you in a position not to make bad decisions. The last thing you want to do is give your credit card to your 16‑year‑old kid. It forces discipline on you, and therefore forces creativity. Every year there’s going to be a major free agent who comes out, or a major decision that we have to make or can’t make because of finances. We always take it as a chance to be creative and find an answer. We try not to spend our time wishing for what we had. We try to spend our time coming up with answers for what we are going to lose.

Q. I wonder if some of the lessons of the A’s success have translated to the business world. For example, Michael Moritz, in a keynote address at the 2004 Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference at Harvard Business School, said venture capitalists should study your formula for finding winners among undervalued players. 

Beane: It’s very flattering. What’s been interesting is that a term I use, the larger culture, has been very receptive to what we've tried to do here. As an example, if you look at the draft, it has changed significantly in the last years as it related to what type of players were being drafted in the first round. There has been a noticeable change in the way many people have started to put together teams and run their businesses. 

Q. How so?
Beane: When Sandy was here we were on a quest for every high on‑base percentage guy we could get, and people were sort of laughing at us. And now the highest paid stat in baseball is for on‑base percentage. And the lowest‑paid stat is stolen bases. The one thing about Wall Street is that there is an immediate return usually on your decisions. In most other businesses there is a significant lag time. But the incentive and the return on your decisions and finances are right there right away, so you’re probably more apt to make change in that sort of business than you are in other businesses. 

Q. What’s the best new idea in baseball? 

Beane: When I see guys like Theo Epstein running the Boston Red Sox and Paul DePodesta down in Los Angeles, I think that some of the people who are now attracted to this business are those that in many cases you would have seen working at, say, Goldman Sachs. It’s people who can implement new ideas. 

Q. Do millionaire players need incentive clauses? 

Beane: A contract is not a unilateral decision. It's something that is negotiated by two parties. So, if [the incentive clause] is there, it means that two parties have agreed upon it.

Q. What is the best call you have made in your position? 

Beane: That’s easy. Hiring J.P. Ricciardi as my director of player personnel and Paul DePodesta as my assistant general manager. 

Q. Billy Martin said, "There is nothing greater in the world than when someone on the team does something good, and everybody gathers around to pat him on the back." What do you consider the best thing about sports? 

Beane: It’s a fraternity of people going in the same direction. And I think that that also exists when it comes to being in the front office as an executive. You sort of build your team in the front office. You have long days and long nights, and then when you win, you have that same espirit de corps that you have on a baseball team in a locker room. You’re around each other so much and you’re all pulling in the same direction. And when it’s realized with a division championship or a playoff appearance it’s really satisfying. 

Q. Rick Reilly called you the shrewdest or most creative business man in sports today. Who is your choice?

Beane: I really like the way the New England Patriots as a whole are run, from Bill Belichick on the field to their front office, and the way they balance their personnel decisions with their finances, and the fact that they’ve won a championship but they’ve also set themselves up for the future. From a personality standpoint I’ve always admired Jerry West. And I’m kind of a [Bill] Parcells guy, too, when it comes to personality. 

Q. What has been the most interesting story of the 2011 offseason?

Beane: As it relates to the A’s or in baseball in general?

Q. In baseball, first.

Beane: Oh, man. I don’t want to sound jaded. Maybe I just take some of the things for granted. The most recent one is the [Albert] Pujols’ negotiations…a player of that caliber, who seems to be on his way to the Hall of Fame. You know, we have one of these every couple of years, but there’s always something unique about each one. 

Q. What about the A’s?

Beane: For us, the interesting thing is our continued quest for a new venue and our frustration there as we watch every other city come up with a new stadium, Florida being the latest. I think it’s pretty much us and Tampa are the last two waiting for one. 

Q. Will a new stadium mean greater revenue and a bigger player payroll budget?

Beane: Selfishly, that’s one of the reasons, but it’s a better fan experience, a better player experience. From a general manager’s standpoint, that’s where I go every single day. I’m there more than anybody, so it’s just a better environment in which to work. It’s updated, and I think everybody would like that. But it’s a lot of reasons beyond just the revenue. 

Q. What about the coming season. What are you looking for?

Beane: We’ve had a real tough time with injuries the last few years, and if we stay healthy, I think we’ll have a pretty competitive club. We’ve got a great young pitching staff and some good young players coming up. But for us to achieve what we’re capable of, we’re going to have to keep guys on the field.

Q. Last season (2010) was a great pitchers’ year. Was that a reflection of drug testing?
Beane: People will look to that, and I think maybe it’s an easy connection to make. But I also think these things go in cycles. In this game, whenever there’s a void in pitching, you spend your time looking for good young pitchers, putting a lot of investment into them. And the young players come up wanting to pitch because of the opportunity, and then once again that cycle will turn around.

Q. During an interview last summer, you said that power is a very expensive commodity. You said, “We take the starting pitchers first and work from there.” Is that still true?
Beane: Yeah, because in this game the one thing that’s constant is that you have to have starting pitching to win. I don’t know if there’s a club that’s been successful that doesn’t have it. If you use that as the foundation from which you build your team, it’s not only a necessity but it’s also difficult to acquire.

Q. Especially for small-market teams.
Beane: So, for us, particularly in a small market, it has to be done through the draft or through trades for younger pitchers that develop. But once you have that, that’s about 60 percent of the battle. If you have a good young starting staff, the other part is a lot easier to put together.

Q. I talked to Peter Gammons a few weeks ago and asked him to give me a breakout team for this season. He tabbed the A’s because he said your pitching is so good.

Beane: We hope so. We’ve got a good defensive club as well and a strong bullpen. I think we’ve upgraded the offense. I don’t think we have that 35- or 40-homer guy that you like to see, but the lineup is deeper, and at the end of the day it’s a zero-sum game. So, with the additions to the bullpen and the fact that the starting pitchers should be at least as good and conceivably could be better because of their age, the fewer runs we give up, the less we have to score. You can attack it from both ends, and I think we have this winter.

Q. Gammons also said, “It is amazing how Billy keeps reinventing himself. He’s like the Curt Schilling of general managers. About every five years, he’s completely different.” I should have followed up because I’m not sure what that means.

Beane: (laughing) Well, I think it’s because we have to. We’re not really in a position to follow the herd because of our market and our revenue. We have to look for gaps, look for gold where other people aren’t looking. We’re just not going to be able to compete head-to-head financially with where everybody else is going. 

Q. The A’s have changed styles over the years.
Beane: Ten or 11 years ago, we didn’t run a lot. We were a big power-hitting club that hit a lot of home runs and walked a lot. Those are no longer skill sets that we can afford in our market, so we’ve turned into a very good defensive club that runs the bases well. And, as always, if you’re going to be good, you’re going to have to have pitching, whether you hit homers or you don’t hit homers.

Q. You emphasize pitchers throwing strikes and batters recognizing strikes.
Beane: It’s a yin yang. If you want hitters who are selective at the plate, you also want pitchers who throw strikes and don’t give up homers. In a perfect world of an offensive team, you have one that hits homers and takes a lot of walks. In a perfect world, your pitching staff throws a lot of strikes and doesn’t give up many homers.

Q. Earl Weaver, your all-time favorite manager, was not a proponent of giving away outs, either by bunts or on the bases, because you only get 27 outs.
Beane: That’s still the case. The stolen base is a great weapon; the caught stealing is not a very good weapon. So, if you’re going to run the bases well and if you’re going to steal bases, make sure you’re doing it at a high percentage because the caught stealing really hurts you.
We’ve been a more aggressive base-running team. What we try to stay away from is just needlessly running just because it looks like you’re supposed to, or just for the sake of being aggressive. I think you have to be aggressive and intelligent at the same time.

Q. In 2010, the A’s set a record for most quality starts by pitchers 26 years of age and under. Quality starts and pitch counts seem incompatible now.
Beane: That’s where it comes down to having guys who throw strikes who are efficient as well. We have a few strikeout guys on our staff, like Gio Gonzalez. But we also have guys who are very efficient with their pitch counts, and that allows them to get deep in the game. Guys who are capable of going through five or six innings and keeping their pitch count down. With strikeout pitchers, it’s difficult for them to complete games just because by virtue of striking guys out their pitch count gets high.

Q. Your defense complements the pitching.
Beane: Our defense does help out there. Keeping pitch counts down is also a function of how good your defense is. When your defense doesn’t play well, that adds to the pitch count. We had a great defensive team and some pitchers that, despite their youth, who were relatively efficient.

Q. I’m sure you remember what a bulldog of a pitcher Mike Marshall once was: the middleman, the set-up guy, and the closer back when there wasn’t such an emphasis on pitch counts. He is so derisive about today’s specialists and maintains that the job of a closer is relatively easy because usually he comes into a game in the ninth inning with the lead and the bases empty.
Beane: I think everyone has an opinion on that. The game has definitely changed. It is an age of specialists. It used to be, when Mike Marshall pitched, guys pitched three innings for a save. But some guys have trained now to throw just one inning.
I think it’s hard to pick out one era and then compare it to another era and say that it’s definitely easier, because I think athletes are getting bigger, stronger, faster, and better at what they do as time goes on. I would say that what Mariano Rivera has been doing for 15 years has not been easy. He’s arguably the greatest closer of all time, and he’s been doing it when there’s been a lot of pressure on in some of the biggest games.
I haven’t pitched the ninth inning, so it’s hard for me to say. But I know that eras change, and it’s hard to compare.

Q. Teams place such an emphasis on closers, but you were able to trade your closer, Huston Street, and get a return on the trade, and then plug in another closer, or a closer-in-the-making.
Beane: Listen, we have been successful—as have other clubs—but a lot of ours is a function of our financial situation, and it’s a necessity for us to move guys. It’s not necessarily because we want to, but financially for us to be able to afford the club that we have. We’re not in a position to be able to afford the luxury of, say, a Mariano Rivera at that type of salary for one inning.

Q. It’s an enviable position to be in to have such a dominant closer.
Beane: It is still nice to have a shut-down guy regardless of what you’re paying him because it certainly makes life a lot easier. But sometimes, once again, the financial part of it forces us to do that. At times we’ve been pretty successful doing that, but there’s no guarantee that the next time we’ll be as successful.

Q. Who is going to be what Michael Lewis called “the new new thing?”
Beane: Gosh. Well, two of the most exciting talents coming in to the game are Stephen Strasburg—we saw some of that last year—and this kid Bryce Harper, who as a teen-ager has created quite a buzz already despite the fact that he signed in June. I think everybody is excited about those talents.

Q. You have always analyzed the numbers and the dollars. For example, looking at the money spent in the first round on high school and college and then analyzing the return on that investment. What are the numbers telling you now? Does anything jump out?
Beane: It’s always shifting. For us, when everyone’s zigging, we have to zag. But I will say that it is getting more and more difficult to find some of the inefficiencies because there are some really bright people out there that also have capital and are doing the same thing.
So, any value you might have gotten in one area is quickly going to be discovered by other people. You’ve got to be willing to change and be open-minded. If you have the idea that there’s going to be a template in any business that’s progressive…you’re probably being a fool.
For us, I think it’s constantly keeping an open mind. And if we do think there’s something out there, try to keep quiet about it until someone else figures it out.

Q. You hear about playing baseball “by the book.” You have refuted some of the popular or accepted thinking. I read where you said, “Liberation means you no longer care what anyone else says.” Does that relate to how you regard conventional wisdom?
Beane: No question. And a lot of it is because we’ve been forced into that position. We have to think differently because of our marketplace. A lot of the way that you do business is dictated by the business you have.
That being said, in our market it does force you to be creative. You’re in a position where you can take some chances that you can’t take in other markets. To do in our market what everyone else does, you’re destined to fail because the resources tell you that you will.

Q. Baseball is a copycat business. What works for one is imitated by others.
Beane: If you’re successful, someone will probably figure out a way to do it better than you do it. And that’s just like any other business. The only difference is, it’s not so capitalistic that you go out of business. But our market forces us to take risks. And in some respects, it’s also very stimulating, too, because it doesn’t let you get too comfortable.

Q. Some teams are working with a bigger net than you, as far as payroll and resources, but maybe the imagination isn’t always there. By the way, where is the imagination in baseball?
Beane: I think at times there is a lot of ingenuity in small markets because they have to have it to survive. But now there are some big markets that are very intelligent, which makes it even tougher.

Q. Like Boston and New York, for example?
Beane: Look at the Red Sox. And people like to point at the Yankees and assume that all they’re doing is just spending money. I don’t think there’s any denying the capital they have, but the fact is they’re very intelligent, too. Brian Cashman and his staff are far more progressive than people give them credit for.
If you go down the line, I think the brainpower that’s come into the game in the last 10 years is the kind of brainpower you saw go into other industries and maybe into high tech in the late nineties. And now these guys dream of running baseball teams, which makes it more challenging for clubs like ours.

Q. It must be tougher to compete with all that brainpower and all that payroll, too. It’s not quite an even playing field?
Beane: Yes. In some respects I guess I’m lucky that I’m not now starting my career (laughing).

Q. Bud Selig brought up the notion of expanded playoffs. How do you feel about that?
Beane: On a limited basis. I think one of the beauties of baseball is that the sanctity of the 162-game season needs to be preserved. American sports are very dear towards television and the playoffs, and that’s a fact of business. But I also think that we’ve got to be careful in not diluting the regular season. We need to respect the teams that go out and win 102-103 games and give them a chance to be the champions because they’ve proven it over the course of the season. So I do think we need to be careful.

Q. Other professional leagues have expanded playoffs.
Beane: Some of the other sports, particularly in basketball and hockey, in some cases the regular season doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot and the playoffs are really where the entire season is. I think we’ve got to make sure that we keep interest from April all the way through October. Adding too many playoff teams can dilute that.

Q. What are you reading [in 2004], and what books have meant the most to you?
Beane: I am currently reading Charlie Wilson's War. I finished When Genius Failed. I'm usually reading a couple of books at one time. I didn't start doing that until I read that Bill Clinton did it, and I said, “Well, heck, if he can do it, maybe I should try it.” I try to read every Warren Buffett book—anything that's ever been written about him or that he's written. I've always been fascinated by his discipline.


Q. What are you reading this spring [of 2011]? 

Beane: Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life. I’ve found it far more interesting and fascinating than I thought I would. He comes across as very, very bright. I’m right in the middle of that, and I’m soon to be on to a book about Alex Ferguson from Manchester United. That’s in the queue.

Q. You’ve always been a voracious reader with a stack of books lined up.

Beane: Between the iPad and the Kindle, I end up lining up a lot more because at the touch of a finger you can order one. So I’ve got a long line of books far beyond those that are in the queue.

Q. When do you find time to read—on plane rides?

Beane: You know, I used to fly a lot more than I do. I try to limit my travel when I can because of my kids. I look forward to a long plane ride just so I can get back into a book, but I try to find at least some time during the day or during the night to get some reading in—almost like homework, to some extent.

Q. I don’t have a commute anymore. That was always an opportunity to read.

Beane: That’s one thing I do miss about travel. I enjoy the quiet time when I can actually read something other than what’s necessary for my job. But I do make sure I try to find some time, and, as I said, the books are stacking up on my electronic devices.  

FAVORITES

Book: Les Miserables

Piece of music: I’m kind of a closet alternative music guy, going back to the New York City punk scene. I consider Johnny Ramone a friend.

Actress: I’ll start with Elizabeth Hurley.  Gosh, I sound so shallow (laughs).  Hey, how about Diane Lane?  She's had a renaissance last year. I think she’s great.

Movies: It’s a Wonderful Life. And I love Braveheart. 

Sportswriter: I think probably the greatest ambassador baseball has is Peter Gammons. He has a real passion for the game and he’s a very bright guy. 

Greatest competitors: Len Dykstra and Dave Stewart 

Smartest players: In my first major league camp with the Mets I lockered next to Tom Seaver. He wouldn’t know me from anybody, but all I remember thinking to myself was—forget baseball—this is a guy who should be running a company. I was very impressed with how smart he was beyond baseball. Also, Keith Hernandez, Larry Bowa, and Tony LaRussa. 

Q. What's a typical day off like? 

Beane: During the season it’s very much wrapped around baseball. I take a fishing trip every year during the season. That’s a good getaway. During the winter it’s quite a bit of skiing and spending time with my daughter. 

Q. We’ve thrown around a few quotes. Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.” Do you have a favorite quote? 

Beane: I save them, too. I pull a lot from the books I read. Chuck Yeager said, “The rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own.”