Sports memoirs fall into many general categories, this one however, tries to fit into too many categories at once. As I read the book, there are times when it feels like it is trying too much, and then there are times when it hits the right spot at the right time. I don’t know whether to ascribe the success of the book to holding my attention to Joe Maddon’s story or to Tom Verducci’s writing and organization. Regardless, I enjoyed the book.
Joe Maddon became famous first as the manager of the Tampa
Bay Rays, a miracle worker who stopped the downward spiral of the team’s
fortunes using his own unique philosophy. He reached the pinnacle of a major
league manager when he managed the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series, the
first and only one in 108 years. But he was unceremoniously replaced a few
years later because he would not submit to front office interference. He
returned to his roots, the California Angels, as manager, but he lasted only a
few more seasons as the landscape of baseball managing changed completely. It
is a stunning lesson in how quickly the center of gravity in professional
sports management shifts and renders the celebrated expendable.
The Book of Joe tries to be a memoir first, it provides reminiscences
of the meaningful factors in Joe Maddon’s life; it is also organized in
chapters that are titled with the Maddonisms, those familiar sayings that made
Maddon famous, which are then structured into a business how-to book; finally,
it tries to be a reportage of how the Moneyball mindset, which had pervaded major
league sports, has gone so far in the other direction, thereby cheating us of
the essential elements of the reasons why we love sports. The last point is the
slow developing theme that becomes the focus showing us the reason why Joe
Maddon is no longer managing in the MLB. The book makes it clear that this situation
is the epitome of irony since Maddon was one of the very first rebels who used
and relied on statistical analysis for his decision making. The accounts of why
and where he tends to rely on statistics is interesting to me, as I have my own
opinions about the usage of statistics. I am not a luddite to the ways of
statistical data, but as an engineer who has had to use statistical process
control and the six sigma methods, I know where the limitations are when
applying statistics to endeavors which are intimately coupled with human
decisions, such as sports.
The threefold intent of the book is something that is very
difficult to pull off. While I felt that the stories of Joe Maddon’s upbringing
and his experiences within baseball were interesting, I also felt that some of
the stories seemed forced because the authors were trying to wedge the stories
into the other two intentions: as lessons and as means of explaining why he acted
and reacted to the quant dominated front office regimes. I will admit that I
was most interested in getting into Maddon’s head and trying to determine the
magic of his managing successes. The book showed a significant part of the
behind the curtains aspects of his decision making. I also appreciated Maddon’s
loyalty to those who had shaped his insights and his instincts as a manager. He
delved into the personas who had influenced his growth as a manager; most importantly,
he was clear in giving us the reason’s why they had such influence over his experiences
and how he uses those lessons on a daily basis in his managerial life.
It is his statement of his philosophy through the chapter titles
that captured my interest the most. His ideas, while not entirely original, have
been presented in a cogent and matter of fact manner; indeed, I have been
inspired to write some articles on Maddon’s themes.
Not all the chapters are gems, but they are interesting
enough to keep me interested as I
learned new ideas as well as being reminded of what I had known previously;
that was worth the price of the book.
The underlying theme throughout the book is an interesting discussion
of the reality in sports. Ever since the publication of Michael Lewis Money Ball
; coaches and managers, both professional
and amateur, have been inspired to change the way they coach and manage, often with an urgency to use statistics to improve
their decisions; those old guard who based their decision making on intuitions and
gut feel have been displaced by quants or stat heads, the resulting revolution has
swung the pendulum completely to the other end of the spectrum, where humanity
and experiences has been relegated to the scrap heap and all the decision makers
are drinking the Moneyball kool-aid. Indeed, there is nothing more dogmatic
and inflexible as someone who was at one time on the outside, someone who was
an innovator and had original ideas. So it is that all humanity and experience
have been denigrated to the point of extinction in coaching and managing.
Maddon and Verducci use Maddon’s story to illustrate that
point. Whereas Maddon was an early adopter and innovator in using statistics,
the expanded front office of today have decided to justify the expenses of
their own existence. Coaching and managing has become a top-down exercise in
ego for the general manager. The crux of the problem is that statistics do not
capture human nature nor the uncertainties that are a large essential part of
sports. The reliance on just statistics to
make decisions is as foolhardy and deceptive, as much as just using gut feels and
intuitions.
References
American Society of Quality-Deming's 14 Points. 2023.
https://asq.org/quality-resources/total-quality-management/deming-points
(accessed August 10, 2023).
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