Moneyball

This might be the best book ever written on statistic and baseball, and if you don't like either, you'll be at least enthralled by Michael Lewis' literary touch and the determination of failed baseball player turned coach Billy Beane. It's been so long since I read such an engaging book about true grit - Beane was a young baseball player who could have had a great future, but unfortunately his skill didn't match with his attitude. Instead he found his calling in coaching the Oakland A's, one of the poorest baseball teams in the league. However, they were also one of the winningest teams. Beane and his sidekick Paul DePodesta used statistics to discover that it was better to draft inexpensive and "defective" players and create excellent players as opposed to simply buying million dollar talent. Along the way they go up against a lot of "old wisdom" to prove their statistical theory.