Actually, I believe it's called "The Last Word" -- that page of nonsense at the back of the Toronto Sun. Today, noted baseball authority Steve Simmons stoops to new depths in his "review" of an already-notorious title:
J.P. Ricciardi has not accomplished enough in baseball to have a book written about him. Not yet anyway.
But if you want to better understand the Blue Jays general manager -- who remains a local curiosity -- there is required reading available.
The new book is called Moneyball, The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and any day now it should be in bookstores, explaining the quirky ways of Ricciardi, if not necessarily by name.
Using that tried-and-true journalistic technique of "guilt by association," Simmons takes everything in the book he doesn't like about Billy Beane, exaggerates it and applies it to J.P.:
In fact, after reading excerpts of Moneyball, it is now clear why Ricciardi all but wiped out the Blue Jays scouting department over the past two winters.
He has little use for the old way of finding ball players. Your eyes tell you only what you see, but a computer compiles statistical data. It can break down a player far better than an old ex-ball player who sits in the stands with a pen and paper and radar gun, driving an old, beatup car from town to town.
The tiniest bit of research would have told Simmons that Ricciardi doesn't use a computer, which is why he hired Keith Law to provide statistical input. For more than a decade, J.P. was the guy with the radar gun, and he reached the top of the scouting profession. It's hard to believe the "quirky curiosity" turned his back on his entire illustrious career by considering effective new ideas.
Simmons pines for a return to his father's baseball. There are other things sorely missed about the "good old days," like intelligent, articulate Red Smith columns, instead of this pile of manure.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030516090331999