Baseball Talent
Lewis expounds, “THE FIRST THING they always did was run you. When big league scouts road-tested a group of elite amateur prospects, food speed was the first item they checked off their lists. The scouts actually carried around checklists. “Tools” is what they called the talents they were checking for in a kid. There were five tools: the abilities to run, throw, field, hit and hit with power.” For one to be enlisted by the scouts, he should validate his prowess in the talents delineated above. The prerequisites segregate the budding, impressive players from the untalented ones. Deficiency of the aptitudes diminishes the prospects of being drafted into the leagues.
Faulty Investments
Lewis expounds, “Just like that, a life changed. One day Billy Beane could have been anything, the next he was just another minor league baseball player; and not even a rich one. On the advice of a family friend, Billy’s parents invested on their son’s behalf his entire $125,000 bonus in a real estate partnership that promptly went bust. It was many years before Billy's mother would speak to Roger Jongewaard.” The inapt venture is not valuable to Beane for it does not return profits his parents had envisaged. Beane’s instance mirrors that of prosperous athletes who mislay hard-earned finances due to defective counsel. Athletes ought to be equipped with reasonable financial management abilities to warranty that they will not be casualties of erroneous speculations.
Intrinsic Incentive
Lewis expounds, “YEARS LATER he (Beane) would say that when he’d decided to become a professional baseball player, it was the only time he’d done something just for money, and that he’d never do something just for the money ever again. He would never again let the market dictate the direction of his life. The funny thing about that, now he was running a poor major league baseball team, was that his job was almost entirely about money: where to find it, how to spend it, whom to spend it on. There was no more intensely financial period in his life than the few weeks, just after the regular season opened, leading up to the amateur draft. There was also no time that he found more enjoyable. He didn’t mind living with money at the center of his life, so long as he was using it on other people, and not having it sued on him.” Beane apprehends that money is not an unqualified source of intrinsic gratification. Engaging in an undertaking because it promises to generate money could be counterproductive if it does not yield unaffected gratification. Monetary reimbursement is principally extrinsic; hence, it should not dictate the professional athletes’ resolutions.
