Lin-sanity and Moneyball

This past weekend my husband and I saw the movie Moneyball on Demand.  Brad Pitt plays Billy Bean-- the general manager of the Oakland A’s who must rebuild his team with little capital. As a result he must rethink the criteria of recruitment. He must spin lead into gold.

And a sub plot of the movie is that oftentimes athletic scouts make predictions about players that do not pan out. That is precisely what happened to Billy Bean in his youth. And I have seen that happen in real life high school sports. I can name on two hands all the girls over the years who made varsity field hockey or girls varsity lacrosse in their freshman year at Garden City high school who found themselves sitting on the bench in their senior year. The coach got it wrong---she saw pyrite as gold. The young players peaked in their freshman year. They never improved from 9^th grade.

But the converse is true too. Some players dismissed as less than elite when they were younger blossomed with time. I can name on a hand and a half the girls who rose from JV-B to varsity—some of them became all-state and all-Americans.

And that idea—that a player has untapped potential—a slower learning curve—is what Lin-sanity is all about. Jeremy Lin—a Chinese American Harvard graduate--is the new star of the NY Knicks. He is the unlikely athlete turned hero. He is proof that opportunity spawns success. Underneath the lead overcoat is a body of gold.

And that is why sports arrests tedium. It makes predictors fail and non-believers believe. It proves stars arise from the dust. And winners lose and losers win. Anything can happen. Anything is possible. And alchemy exists if you are not too arrogant to observe the science.