Proving Once Again: Best-Selling Authors Are Morons

The book Freakonomics has become a mammoth bestseller, with its askew looks on just about every measure of economic analysis. As would have to inevitably happen, one of those askew looks ended up landing on baseball, specifically Michael Lewis' own bestseller Moneyball and the Oakland A's. Author Stephen A. Levitt claimed, in a blog post in April, that the Moneyball principle was a fraud and that the A's were destined to finish under .500 this year.

Well, the A's, after collapsing at the beginning of the year, are now the hottest team in baseball and currently have the wild-card lead. Levitt, sheepishly, addresses the issue on the Freakonomics blog:

To all the Billy Beane fans I offended earlier this season:

I have noticed that the A's are now three games above .500.

I'm too busy with other stuff to even try to say something intelligent about baseball right now. Plus my fragile psyche can't take anymore of the kind of abuse that baseball fans hand out.

Boy, do we know how he feels ...

Oakland A's Are Three Games Above .500 [Freakonomics] Do The Freak [Baseball Musings]