Moneyball by Lewis, Michael (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

Anyone older than about twenty-three who is desirable will be too obviously desirable for the Mets to give up. They’re looking for a player whose promise they have a better view of than the Mets. Someone very young. It will be someone they do not know, and have never seen, and have researched for thirty seconds.

“How about Garcia?” Paul finally asks.

“What’s Garcia? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-two,” says Paul.

He shows Billy the stats for Garcia and Billy says, “Garcia’s good. I’ll ask for Garcia.” He gets up and walks back to his office. “Fuck!” he says, on the way. “I know what I’ll do. Why don’t we go back to them and say, ‘Give us cash too!’ What’s the difference between Rincon and Venafro?”

Paul punches numbers into his calculator: 232,923.

“I’ll ask him for two hundred and thirty-three grand plus the prospect,” says Billy. “The money doesn’t mean anything to the Mets.”

Being poor means treating rich teams as petty cash dispensers: $233,000 is the difference between Venafro and Rincon’s salaries for the rest of the season. If he can get the Mets to give him the $233,000, he doesn’t even need to call his owner. He can just make the deal himself.

He pauses before he picks up the phone. “Should I call Sabean first?” He’s asking himself; the answer, also provided by himself, is no. As Billy calls Steve Phillips, Paul reappears. “Billy,” he says “you might also ask for Duncan. What can they say? He’s hitting .217.”

“Who would we rather have, Garcia or Duncan?” asks Billy.

The Mets’ secretary answers before Paul. Billy leans back and smiles. “Denise,” he says, “Billy Beane. Vice President and General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. Denise, who is the coolest GM in the game?” Pause. “Right again, Denise.” Denise’s laughter reaches the far end of Billy’s office. “Billy has the gift of making people like him,” said the man who had made Billy a general manager, Sandy Alderson. “It’s a dangerous gift to have.”

This time Steve Phillips is present, and ready to talk. “Look, I’m not going to ask you for a lot,” says Billy generously, as if the whole thing had been Phillips’s idea. “I need a player and two hundred and thirty-three grand. I’m not going to ask you for anyone really good. I have a couple of names I want to run by you. Garcia the second baseman and Duncan the outfielder who hit .217 last year.”

Phillips, like every other GM who has just received a call from Billy Beane, assumes there must be some angle he isn’t seeing. He asks why Billy sent Venafro down to Triple-A. He’s worried about Venafro’s health. He wonders why Billy is now asking for money, too.

“Venafro’s fine, Steve,” says Billy. He’s back to selling used cars. “This is just a situation for us. I need the money for…something else I want to do later.”

Phillips says he still wonders what’s up with Venafro. The last few times he’s pitched, he has been hammered. Billy sighs: it’s harder turning Mike Venafro into a New York Met than he supposed. “Steve, me and you both know that you don’t judge a pitcher by the last nine innings he threw. Art misused him. You should use him for a whole inning. He’s good against righties too!”

For whatever reason the fish refuses the bait. At that moment Billy realizes: the Mets are hemming and hawing about Venafro because they think they are going to get Rincon. “Look,” says Billy. “Here’s the deal, Steve.” He’s no longer selling used cars. He’s organizing a high school fire drill, and tolerating no cutups. “I’m going to get Rincon. It’s a done deal. Yeah. It’s done. The Giants want Venafro. I’ve told them they can have him for a player: Luke Robertson.”

“Anderson,” whispers Paul.

“Luke Anderson,” says Billy, easing off. “We like Anderson. We think he’s going to be in the big leagues. But I’d like to deal with you because Sabes doesn’t have any money. You can win this because you can give me two hundred thirty-three grand in cash, and he can’t. I don’t have to have the two hundred thirty-three grand in cash. But it makes enough of a difference to me that I’ll work with you.” He’s ceased to be the fire drill instructor and become the personal trainer. You can do it, Steve! You can win!

Whatever place he’s reached in the conversation, he likes. “Yeah,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be Garcia or Duncan. I’ll find a player with you. If it makes you feel better.” _] “Okay, Steve. Whoever calls me back first gets Venafro.” [(But if you drag your heels you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.)_]

Billy’s assistant tells him that Peter Gammons, the ESPN reporter, is on the line. In the hours leading up to the trade deadline Billy refuses to take calls from several newspaper reporters. One will get through to him by accident and he’ll make her regret that she did. Most reporters, in Billy’s experience, are simply trying to be the first to find out something they’ll all learn anyway before their deadlines. “They all want scoops,” he complains. “There are no scoops. Whatever we do will be in every paper tomorrow. There’s no such thing as a paper that comes out in an hour.”

It’s different when Peter Gammons calls. The difference between Gammons and the other reporters is that Gammons might actually tell him something he doesn’t know. “Let’s get some info,” he says, and picks up the phone. Gammons asks about Rincon and Billy says, casually, “Yeah, I’m just finishing up Rincon,” as if it’s a done deal, which clearly it is not. He knows Gammons will tell others what he tells him. Then the quid pro quo: Gammons tells Billy that the Montreal Expos have decided to trade their slugging outfielder, Cliff Floyd, to the Boston Red Sox. Billy quickly promises Gammons that he’ll be the first to know whatever he does, then hangs up the phone