Winning against the odds

How serious a subject is sport? We know it is dramatic and revealing, but beneath the veneer of action and celebrity does sport justify a more considered analytical approach? There is a dual aspect here: does thinking have much to do with winning, and, if so, can the lessons of victory enhance our thinking about other, more ‘highbrow’ spheres?

Michael Lewis — formerly of Salomon Brothers on Wall Street and this magazine — is at the forefront of those sportswriters who answer ‘yes’ to both questions. The heroes of his intimately researched sports books are the philosopher kings of sports coaching, men with original minds who rise above cliché-ridden sports chat. When brain defeats brawn in one of Michael Lewis’s sports books, you can almost hear the prose style lift off.

In Moneyball, Lewis’s brilliant bestseller about baseball, the object of his admiration was Billy Beane, manager of the Oakland Athletics and leftfield strategist.