The Military and Moneyball

My biggest interest outside of baseball is history, particularly military history, and this morning I found an article that combines both topics: "Military Moneyball: Everyone is Applying the Lessons from Michael Lewis' Book, Even U.S. Forces" by Marc Tracy over at The New Republic.

TNR is a political magazine and politics is generally off-topic around here....I confine my political rants to my personal facebook page. So while I don't want this discussion to get out of control, this article is well-worth your time to read. I didn't know, for example, that sportswriter Joe Posnanski had been invited to speak at Fort Leavenworth's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies.

According to Tracy, Moneyball has been used as part of the curriculum at other military schools including Leavenworth''s School of Advanced Military Studies and the United States Marine Corps training base at Quantico, Virginia. Tracy ties it in with educating soldiers about COIN (Counter-Insurgency) operations.

As a counterpoint, TNR does link to a Buzz Bissinger article called "Against Moneyball" from 2009.