A good example is Moneyball, a baseball book written about the approach Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane takes to baseball. The book shows how Beane has set up the As to try and take advantage of perceived market deficiencies to acquire undervalued baseball talent, because Oakland doesn't have enough resources to approach baseball the way teams from the North East can. Part of that approach is the A's being very sabermetric savy – sabermetrics is a field of study that takes a very in depth look into baseball statistics to help make predictions. It's been poo-pooed by much of the mainstream media (but it continues to gain traction), even though some incredible statistical work has been done that is invariably changing the game (it's as often as not that you'll see a commenter talk about On Base Percentage now, where the focus used to be on Batting Average even though it's a much sillier statistic). But it's really about Beane attempting to find value in areas where other teams were ignoring. The A's started producing lots of hitters who had power and took walks, but didn't fit the "toolsy" approach lots of other organizations favored (essentially, going after high caliber athletes, often ones who weren't that good at baseball).

Morgan harps and harps on Moneyball and treats the book like it's some sort of paean to sabermetrics, when it isn't. He hasn't even read it, but he continues to take his stubbornly old guard approach to both the book and the game. It's absurd.

Morgan's hangups are, perhaps, traditional. He grew up playing the game a certain way, thinks it should be played a certain way, and represents an old guard mindset. That kind of friction is everywhere – old and established versus new and different, but it definately goes back to the fact that the greats don't necessarily make for much of anything beyond what they were great at. It's a little different than Spence's, what should I call it. . . "approach". I think his is a classic case of "people not necessarily understanding why they are good at something", or at least being unable to articulate what makes them good at something. Maybe Spence has lots of silly rituals that he believes are the source of his secret powers. It's just as likely that the rituals serve to put him in an emotional place that's perfect for the court room – calming himself and channeling his energy if you will. It's unlikely that he got where he is because he's got 27 different Power Animals.

But what do I know? The cool thing about Zen Buddhism is that everything can be Zen if you look at it the right way.