Baseball executive legend has conversation on campus

“A Conversation with Moneyball’s Billy Beane” was hosted Monday night in the John R. Emens Auditorium as part of the Excellence in Leadership program. Students and community members nearly filled the bottom floor of Emens; the balcony was closed off. 

The conversation was led by Mark Montieth, host of “One on One” on 1070 The Fan. 

Montieth opened the conversation asking Beane how he came up with his business plan that revolutionized baseball management, focusing on the numbers and statistics of players. 

“We were just trying to survive; we were trying to create something that allows these teams to be successful,” Beane said. “We really didn’t feel like we invented anything. We were trying to steal ideas from people that were out there in other industries.”

Beane, who is hailed as one of the most progressive baseball executives of all time, was the subject of the 2011 film “Moneyball,” starring Brad Pitt. He is also the general manager of the Oakland Athletics and was recently recognized as the 2012 Baseball Executive of the Year. 

Beane spoke about the process of his career being turned into a book and then a movie. Michael Lewis, who wrote “Moneyball,” told Beane he was just writing an article about his work with the Oakland Athletics, an article that turned into a book. 

“No one is going to read your book,” Beane said he told Lewis. “We’re not even the most popular team in town.” 

He said the book’s success, however, was more than Beane expected. 

“Ten years later, a movie has been made and I’m still waiting for my life to get back to normal,” Beane said. 

The conversation turned to baseball, and Montieth and Beane discussed managing talent without a large budget, the impact of technology on player trading and recruiting players internationally. 

Beane said a string of losses is what keeps him up at night. 

“You hate the losing more than you enjoy winning. It wears you out,” Beane said. “Every night you have a game and you lose, you’re going to be up all night.”  

After their conversation, Beane took questions from audience members. 

Before the event, ten students from Excellence in Leadership had the opportunity to meet with Beane in the Student Center in a closer group.

Junior accounting major Tara Cahill hopes to work in baseball someday and was thrilled with the Beane experience. She was the first to ask Beane a question. 

“I don’t want to say it was different than expected and I don’t want to say it was better than I expected because I expected a lot,” Cahill said. “He presents himself very much on the same level as everyone else which strengthens the fact he doesn’t want to do anything for money.”

Cahill said Beane’s talk gave her the inspiration that even though she is not a baseball player, she can still succeed in baseball management. 

“He made it very clear there is baseball and baseball operations,” Cahill said. “Just because you don’t play baseball doesn’t mean you can’t be in baseball operations and be at the top of that.”