Try Not to Suck: The Exceptional, Extraordinary Baseball Life of Joe Maddon by Bill ChastainMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
As a Cubs fan and a converted Joe Maddon fan, I sure learned a lot about the Rays reading this book. I was in high school when Joe Maddon played single A ball with the local Angels affiliate. I didn’t attend any games that year, to my delayed regret. His playing career is covered pretty quickly – the reason being it was over pretty quickly. The book does spend a lot of time on his growing with the Angels and his days with the Rays. The Cubs content appear to heavily lean on interviews with Jon Lester, Jed Hoyer, and Theo Epstein, as well as news reports. The book does a good job of covering the way Maddon’s philosophy of coaching has changed over time, and how it expresses itself with slogan, theme days, and in conversations with the players and the press. He often breaks, or at least bends, convention, and manages through trust when he can. Maddon's research, his methods, and his outcomes would make an interesting Business/HR case study. And possibly a good Business Analytics case study as well, although that isn't covered in much depth here. Maddon is a very interesting character, and this really just gives a flavor of how he thinks. I look forward to future Maddon books more detailed and personal.
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