Asked me i never really asked myself exactly. What lead me to want to write a book because they are a pain in the neck to do. You need a level of passion about it. Usually what it is if i look back on it it is finding a person. An interesting person in an interesting situation and explore some interesting ideas. What almost always happens is i have a lot of little projects, magazine pieces, things i am investigating, it consumes me and i get to the point, this is such a good story i have an obligation to tell it. That is the point of the book, i have to do this, it should be done because it should be told. In terms of you asked me to go to a class of journalism schools, to write a good story i wouldnt know how to begin. Host you were working for Salomon Brothers. Guest my career path, there should be something on the bottom of the tv screens at says try this in your own home. I dont think you can grasp the model on a literary career. I was an art history major in college. I wanted to i stumbled out of College Without any particular direction. The first book, liars poker rising through the wreckage of wall street, accidentally without a great deal of intention. What happened was while i was working on my princeton thesis, i became engrossed with the writing of it. I had never written for newspapers, never conceived of myself as a writer. I like to read, but didnt have anybody telling me you are a born writer. When i finished and handed it to my professor and had a defensive thesis, i got very vain about how it was written and looked for him to say this is nicely written. He hadnt said it so in the course of this exchange i said what did you think of the writing . He said put it this way, never try to make a living at it. But i tried. When i got out of college, i really want to write, i want to write books so i started submitting things to magazines, things started to be published and one thing led to another. The practical thing that happened that was useful for my career was doing something other than right. It was hugely useful given my subsequent career that i spent two years, gave me material, you wouldnt get in a normal journalistic life on the inside of Something Like that. That attached engines, and experience to write about. Host i wonder, you are currently working on, what are your upcoming projects . Guest at any time if you come to my office you would see a row on a bench, you might want to do this. There are dozens of things in various states of neglect. The thing that has me jazz, it will sound boring, right in the federal government when trump was elected i watched the transition there were bits and pieces in the newspaper, the Administration Bylaw prepared for the transition, with 2 million employees in production, a level of 4000 who role in not knowing much but have to cram to figure out what is going on, the department of energy and agriculture and people who role in, from the point of view of the outgoing administration, and the obama administration, how they prepared for the transition in 2008 during a time of crisis obama directed his government to Pay Attention in a big way. Maybe the best course ever created how the federal Government Works from agency to agency, smart people waiting to teach and the Trump Administration didnt show up for it. Some departments really didnt show up for it. I thought it was a missed opportunity. If you approve of everything obama stood for you could learn a lot from outgoing people how it works, the amount of overlap is greater then the political noise we would have you believe. I went to get the briefing, calling up career civil service, can you give me the talk with the briefing book that you were going to get whoever was supposed to show up, figure out how it works, what they might not know might kill them and almost arbitrarily i started with the energy department, it is misnamed, the department of Nuclear Weapons and neglect of that is frightening. In the second one, a kind of test pace, you want to read about that, Nuclear Weapons, seems alarming a new administration with come in so haphazard about the nuclear stockpile. Lets see, the department of agriculture, what goes on in there and spent several months getting those briefings and it was riveting to me, things they had to say, the range of activities, i will keep doing it. Where it leads i dont know. As i suggested, the first question, i feel excitement about the material. Host if you take a look moneyball the art of winning an unfair game about algorithms, an interesting story about people and personalities and americas pastime how do you weave that together . Guest how does it start . I dont look and say theres a book here. It starts very small with an observation, watching my local baseball team, money was starting to happen in baseball, free agent salaries going through the roof. I looked and i thought that is hard. It used to be they were close to each other. And a right fielder paid 6 million, kicked off the left fielder, the class resentment, watching money on the field, the story is not that or not only that, how much money the team has, my team is a poor team, it has a fourth payroll for the new york yankees weighing as many games as the new york yankees, in an efficient market, we just buy the best there is, how come that is not happening . Starts with a question. I go see management to ask about it. Their answer is so riveting it takes a month to figure out this isnt a magazine piece or a little article. This is a book. Host really interesting character played by brad pitt in the movie, i realized at some point could be the engine for the narrative. Than the question of how you put it together in a way the reader will keep turning pages. The bottom of it, in an odd way is the easy part, figuring out what the story is about. What i thought the story was about, baseball was what we were going to be reading about but underneath the fact that any people, any labor market could be so inefficient, marked for Baseball Players, forget the Baseball Players, corporate employees doing what they do with millions of people watching them do their job, they were not counting things, a lot of what they did on the field, they can be so valued you can build a juggernaut on the baseball team, who cant . That is the way markets miss value people. Once you had that energy, that is an important story that transcends the immediate subject matter, laying out host went did you get to the point . This is going to be the story . I cant always answer that question with every book but in the case of moneyball the art of winning an unfair game, it is funny. I was trying to figure how this operation starting with the front office, strategy, people using their intuition to better Statistical Analysis, at one point i said what do players think . Kind of odd, they dont look like most teams, you have to go slow, that kind of thing. Players, we dont tell the players anything come all the stuff, it just confuses them. Dont tell them. But i thought this is the start of a conversation with the player, a lab rat, you could talk to the lab rat. I was thinking i had a long magnet. The penny hadnt dropped and i went to go systematically bound the clubhouse. And and waiting for player to come back from the showers and looking at the players coming back from the showers. For the first time i had seen the oakland days naked and it was a really unpleasant site like a baseball uniform a lot of body fat where there shouldnt have been, misshapen parts. I had the thought that if you line those bodies against the wall and ask anyone what they lived for a living no one would guess they were professional athletes. Tv interview with maybe, not professional athletes. I realized how they didnt look right, mentioned this the next day, that is a funny thing you say because we talk about that. When a player looks wrong, one reason the market is valued, we see a player look like a famous baseball player who has played before, the market will get a good player, they see him and say that is a player but if use short or fatter has club feet they Say Something is off about him and the markets are put off. We are essentially in the business of finding people who have defects and the more obvious defects the better it is in a way because the defects will distract baseball experts from seeing the real value of what that person is doing and that is when i thought how they look in baseball has an effect how they are valued . How can that be . That i started thinking this is a story of market and how screwed up they can be, not just Baseball Players but women in the workplace. It applies to a lot of things, the way we stereotype and how that affects the value of people who are stereotyped. And how on earth i lay it out, that point, sitting here, tricked into writing a book, six weeks into a relationship that is a real magazine for the New York Times, fine with that. I rolled in and said you can see the expression change but it was too late, spent so much time with me i couldnt get out of this. Host 2027488200, 3 hours the first sunday of the month, in depth and our guest, Michael Lewis. We will take your calls in a minute. This is from 2011. I worked under sandy alderson. And went back the bill changed, and made sense for me and once i had access to that, no turning back for myself, it starts when Michael Lewis was in her office, it is a challenging situation, and the organization itself, and sports analytics. Host your reaction. Guest it gets even funnier, got tricked into that. To understand, couldnt spend my time with them and see what they are doing. And much of that material, and the toronto blue jays, Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners affiliated with the organization and really different so billy been saw me doing this. He is writing about baseball. I try not to clue in the subject too much, he gets the book, and when a reader can read it is too late, and he calls me, horribly upset, kind of shouting at me. And if i felt sneaky about it, it is not in his interest to write this book, gaining a market advantage and other teams, that was what he was upset about. I said what are you upset about you do you have me saying, cant say the word on tv, expletive, cursing all the time. I said what . You do curse all the time. You dont understand, my mother is really upset. If she reads this she will be upset with your mother . I thought if that is all you are worried about, i thought you were worried that i exposed your secrets to Major League Baseball team that you will no longer be able to win baseball games for less money and this long pause, you dont think anyone in baseball is going to read your book . Nobody is going to read your book. People do read the book and it goes crazy and his life will up. To his credit, he could easily have said Michael Lewis does not know what he is talking about. We gave him a few interviews but he got it all wrong. He could easily have thrown me under the bus but he didnt, he fought back on my behalf. Flashforward, a few months, a movie studio wants to buy the book and turn it into a movie. In 2004, 2003, a lot of movie studios by a lot of things i have written nothing had been made into a movie and, the money is an option and it is great, free money, they make it, billy calls me and says you wont believe who calls, some movie studio wants to buy my life rights to make into a movie, hes laughing. That is not going to happen. I said what did you say . Know. I dont want a movie, i dont want the book, i dont want to movie. If you are thinking about it all the wrong way. They give you money, never make anything, they just buy stuff, you will take the money and put it in a drawer and they will never make it. From liars poker rising through the wreckage of wall street to a dozen magazine pieces they bought, and he is listening and goes wow, good deal. If i sign it they will give me money so he signs it. Every 18 months for six years he will get another check which he called me and said this is fantastic, they just send you money and never make the money. One day he calls me and says you mastered, brad pitt just called, hes on the way to my house, my wife is putting on makeup and the babysitter is wearing a dress, he said you said this wasnt going to happen. I was as shocked as anybody. I was shocked. These relationships i have with my subjects, i really am the chicken with the ham and egg breakfast, the subject is im interested, they are committed and i could move on with my life, but a book and a movie exploding in a persons life is amazing, the grace that he handled it. It is not pleasant. Even if it is pleasant, this way, it is odd and distorted. He has handled it very well. Host another book became a movie, blindside, is a true your wife that you would be an idiot if you didnt write the book . Guest yes. You may have gathered in order to write i need to tell myself a story about why i am writing the story. I am the only one who can tell the story because i have a privileged position. The blind side evolution of a game, it helps if it connect up to things you have done before. If it at least rhymes with something youve done before. I could write a book like that. It was not preposterous that i write a book even if it is about baseball. There was a somatic connection but the blind side evolution of a game, the action involved, since we have three hours i can tell you this at length, shut me if im going on too long. Host we could go longer. Guest no one has listen to me at this link. Anyway. Host we have 2 hours and 35 minutes. Guest i decided i wanted to write a piece, quixotic exercise about the teacher who most influenced me in my life who happened to be a great man named Billy Fitzgerald and i wanted to persuade New York Times magazine to put Billy Fitzgerald on its cover and just get at how someone gets into the head of the kids, so powerful and with such purpose, i hear now. Host let led to the book coach lessons of the game of life. Guest i was thinking about that in the story, from kinderh 12th grade, turning the radio, being there for 13 years. He picks me up at the airport and the first thing he said was who writes your books . I said i write my books. Your name is on the mend you promote them but who writes them . I sit down and write my books. He goes you are a dumbass like me in the back of english class, no way you write books. Took me forever to persuade them that i was actually the pen in the operation and not just a front man for a bookselling operation. He takes me to his house. He was a poor boy growing up and made a huge success of himself in the outskirts of memphis tennessee and introduces me to his family. In his living room, 6 foot 5, 350 pound, basically introduced to me or explained in any way. That is my goal, came to the school, in shorts and a tshirt in the snow and pulled over, one thing led to another, basically homeless and not functioning in school so took him in and we got back in touch and the story of what is going on in their house and it is clearly pygmalion except with a modern twist, rich white evangelical, trying to with some success he starts to become under her regime, starts to succeed in school, he starts to come out of the shell a bit. A really gifted athlete was drafted by the new jersey nets, playing in the nba, by the cincinnati reds, that good, maybe could have played a central baseball and sean is a fixer like he knows how to fix and said i can train him up. Like a basketball player, i could train him in college, that will be his ticket into college. The coach will get him into the school. Pause for a second because of moneyball, sports franchises talk about analytics, how you intellectualize and became friends with the guy in the front Office San Francisco 49ers Football Team and talk about the interesting questions about money in sports, not how much money you have because everybody has the same payroll. It is more how the money is distributed. Do you have any data in 3 agency happens, a time when everybody got paid by the organization, the valuable position and brought up the data, what we all expect in other fields but used to be in the old days like a running back, more high profile player and with free agency this guy called the left tackle who guards the quarterbacks blindside, became the second highest paid player and no one knew their names but they were very peculiar physical type, elephants or ballerinas, huge, especially big hands, defenders coming in, long arms, incredibly agile, quick. I was learning about that. You will never believe what just happened. Nick sabin, coach of the crimson tide and lsu tigers, come through the school and seen michael or on the Basketball Court and said that is a future nfl left tackle. At that point he had been in uniform on the football field and put him on the bench, a sophomore, an expensive player who didnt hit anybody and seemed disoriented on the field. At this point i turned to my wife and heard some of the stories and it is quite moving, shows michael or is dead and he stares at it, i never had a bite in my life. This is a new thing for me. That is in the movie and these things were happening but that is not my kind of story, to get a kid you grew up with and make them a main character in a book, seems like it is cheating in some way. A color commentator of the Memphis Grizzlies and went to dinner telling stories, there is a book here but not my book, we got in the car and, you are needed if you dont make this the next book. The inherent drama in the story, i realize at some point, the way to organize it, i could harmonize with my own writing path, and it was if you ask the question how does michael or go from being a homeless foraging street kid who is likely to be dead or in jail, very bad neighbor in memphis and projected future when he is 15 is not pretty, from least valued invisible people in his age to one of the most, future nfl left tackle which he became in two years. How does that happen . One of the things, the forces in nfl football that led to particular things to become valuable, and another thing is a mother but i will write a story around this kid, about these forces. What got me jazzed about it, it was related to the moneyball the