"One of the best baseball—and management—books out....Deserves a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame."—Forbes
Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseballFollowing the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only "the single most influential baseball book ever" (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what "may be the best book ever written on business" (Weekly Standard).
I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story. The story concerned a small group of undervalued professional baseball players and executives, many of whom had been rejected as unfit for the big leagues, who had turned themselves into one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. But the idea for the book came well before I had good reason to write it—before I had a story to fall in love with. It began, really, with an innocent question: how did one of the poorest teams in baseball, the Oakland Athletics, win so many games?
With these words Michael Lewis launches us into the funniest, smartest, and most contrarian book since, well, since Liar's Poker. Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the front offices of major league teams, and the dugouts, perhaps even in the minds of the players themselves. Lewis mines all these possibilities—his intimate and original portraits of big league ballplayers are alone worth the price of admission—but the real jackpot is a cache of numbers—numbers!—collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers and physics professors.
What these geek numbers show—no, prove—is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information has been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.
Billy paid attention to those numbers —with the second lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to—and this book records his astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. Moneyball is a roller coaster ride: before the 2002 season opens, Oakland must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players, is written off by just about everyone, and then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins.
In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win...how can we not cheer for David?.
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Did you know you could teach from home and earn a six-figure salary? Thousands of people make a great living teaching online courses from home, and the more classes they teach the more they earn! If you want into this exciting profession, this guide will show you how to get started, find great jobs, and earn more than you thought possible..
Price: $13.84
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According to a 2006 study done by the National Education Association, 50% of teachers leave the profession within five years because of poor working conditions and low salaries Yet, according to the 2006 General Social Survey, teaching ranks among the Top 10 most gratifying jobs with 69% of teachers reporting they were very satisfied with their jobs. A low salary should not be the reason stop molding young minds and influencing lives for the betterment of our society. Learn to: Retire with a sizeable nest egg Teach in a foreign country Own all of your possessions including your cars and house Invest in Roth IRAs and 403bs Establish a weekly 'budget' Live a financially secure life on a teacher s salary! Use author Danny Kofke's easy-to-use tips to equip you and your family to not only survive, but live happily within your means, multiply your funds and invest in your future..
Price: $9.99
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With more than 40% of the federal government's 1.6 million employees retiring in the next 10 years, now is the time for anyone seeking a government job to take advantage of the massive retirement wave that has already begun. Yet until now, no truly up-to-date or comprehensive book has existed to give readers the tools and guidance they need to get hired for a government job, internship, or fellowship. Entertainingly written by a successful career coach who has served as a federal hiring manager, this reader-friendly book steers prospective applicants through every stage of their job search. Drawing on interviews with more than 100 other hiring managers, the book gives readers:
little-known ways for finding openings * shortcuts for instantly impressing the true gatekeepers on paper and in person * sure-fire tips for negotiating a top salary * and expert techniques for getting quickly promoted Including a companion CD filled with sample résumés and worksheets, this is the book to have when seeking a federal job..
Price: $16.21
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Quietly and steadily, the number of women making six figures or more is increasing and continues to rise at a rate faster than for men. From entrepreneurs to corporate executives, from white-collar professionals to freelancers and part-timers, women are forging careers with considerable financial success.
In Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Barbara Stanny, journalist, motivational speaker,and financial educator, identifies the seven key strategies of female highearners: A Profit Motive, Audacity, Resilience, Encouragement, Self-Awareness, Non-attachment, and Financial Know-How.
Based on extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including more than 150 women whose annual earnings range from $100,000 to $7 million, Barbara Stanny turns each of the six-figure traits into a specific strategy for upping earnings. By rigorously fine-tuning them, readers can, step-by-step, climb the income ladder.
The Complete Guide to Sales Force Incentive Compensationexplores the concepts, tools, and processes necessary to create incentive plans that motivate the sales force and drive results. The book provides step-by-step methods to help readers design, implement, and administer a new plan encompassing pay level, salary-incentive mix, performance measures, and performance-payout relationship.
Readers will find eye-opening, real-world examples, detailed case studies, and scorecards, as well as valuable insight on how they can assess their current plan and evaluate and compare proposed alternatives. This invaluable book helps readers energize their entire sales team--both in the field and in-house--and increase their bottom line..
Price: $7.86
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As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees—including the vast majority of faculty—really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce.
Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education—a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher educations corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.
ALSO OF INTEREST
Author interview with Cary Nelson
Author Blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education
Call to Arms for Academic Labor—Review by Inside Higher Ed
Compensating the Sales Force is a uniquely jargon-free, how-to guide to all major sales compensation concepts and formulas. Using real-world examples, guru David J. Cichelli:
Helps readers select the right compensation strategy for their firm
Provides step-by-step guidance to implementing various approaches
Simplifies the mathematical formulas that are a thorn in most manager's side
The Occupational Outlook Handbook has been respected as the job seeker's number-one source of critical decision-making data for more than 50 years. From able seaman to zoologist, the latest edition gives you comprehensive information on more than 250 occupations, encompassing nearly 90 percent of the jobs in the U.S. economy.