The inside story of how the Dodgers won their first championship in more than thirty years—but helped cripple the sport of baseball in the process
After years of frustrating playoff runs, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally reclaimed the World Series trophy after more than thirty years, led by star pitcher Clayton Kershaw, electric outfielder Mookie Betts, and a bevy of impressive young players assembled by team president Andrew Friedman. No team is better positioned to win now and in the future.
Yet winning at modern baseball is nothing like it was even twenty years ago. In the years since the famous Moneyball revolution, baseball has grown to look less like a sport than a Wall Street firm that traded its boiler room for a field. Teams relentlessly chase every tiny advantage to win games and make money, even as it hurts fans, TV ratings, and players, courting bigger problems in the long run.
This dramatic and insightful book takes you into the clubhouse with the championship players, as well as into the offices where teams constantly seek new ways to win—even when it hurts the game. How to Beat a Broken Game shows not only what it takes to win, but what it will take to save the sport.
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Today, baseball is deciding who it will serve in—and for—the coming generations. Soaked in greed and in the hands of Ivy League numbers crunchers, the game teeters between sport and thesis paper. Better it is in the hands of Pedro Moura, who, in How to Beat a Broken Game, has captured the science, the economics, and the soul of a pastime laboring to rediscover its most authentic self. It’s a brilliant book about the championship Dodgers. It’s a book about so much more.
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Tim Brown, bestselling coauthor of The Phenomenon and Imperfect