Let us now consider two often-overlooked reasons as to why it feels so good to root for the Oakland A’s: Nerds and punkers. Any nerd — and we’re talking to you, too, sports-hating nerd — will find a friend in A’s general manager Billy Beane. His counterintuitive way for selecting players, as spelled out so beautifully in the Michael Lewis classic Moneyball, is to value the smart guy who finagles his way onto base rather than the musclebound jocko who clobbers home runs. As a result, Beane figured out how to screw the Man at his own bloated game — and on the cheap, too. Even better, Beane rocks out to the likes of the Clash and Green Day. In a city brimming with disenfranchised intellectuals, watching the Oakland A’s win a game feels like a validation, a reminder, a stamp of approval that says: Nerds and punkers have the last laugh.
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