The Writer’s Coin

This feature may turn out to be a regular on this blog, just because I think Michael Lewis is one of the most interesting people in the world.

For those uninitiated, he is a writer/journalist/former investment banker. He got super famous after writing Moneyball, a book about the new ways baseball statistics began to change the way people looked at the game.

I’m going to give you one of the most entertaining links there is. This is a link to all his New York Times articles. Gold, my friends, gold.

Here is his latest, about the longest field goal ever kicked and the overall psychological impact of being a kicker. It’s awesome.

But here’s part of the Lewis mystique: he was at the game where the record-setting kick took place. He was there when a guy with a mangled foot broke the record. Read enough Lewis and these things start to become commonplace. Like how he found the subject for his incredible book about Michael Oher, The Blind Side.

Talk about networking, this guy is the king of networking. The other thing I find so appealing about him is that he started as a Wall Street guy back in the 80s (read Liar’s Poker for that story), he’s obsessed with baseball, and he’s a great writer.

All things I’m very interested in myself.

Here is what Michael Lewis is so good at and why Moneyball is such an interesting piece of Meta Non-Fiction: he finds topics that no one else is writing about and he brings them to the mainstream—to the New York Times. And you think to yourself, “Wow, this is incredibly compelling, why didn’t I/someone else think to write this?”

Someone did. And his name is Michael Lewis and he is incredible compelling.

Tags: kickers, Michael Lewis