April 30, 2008

Michael Lewis: Sports super genius?

By: Sonny Bunch

Michael Lewis is, of course, not a sports super genius, but he is without a doubt the most important sports writer of the last half decade; Moneyball changed the face of baseball, and The Blind Side appears to be doing the same for football. Though he didn’t invent statistical analysis of baseball or figure out that the left tackle is the most important position in the NFL, he did give voice to the theories and spread them to a wider audience. Bill James is the true sports super genius–Michael Lewis is merely a more accessible writer.

(By the way, Darren Rovell’s work is almost as good as Lewis’s. He always has something interesting to say about the business side of sports. I highly recommend his blog over at CNBC.)

h/t Deadspin