March 28, 2011
An entertaining sports book that switch-hits as a business guide to achieving success, Keri's first major effort (after editing Baseball Between the Numbers) chronicles the ups and downs of Major League Baseball in Tampa, Fla. In 2005, former Goldman Sachs partners Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman acquired the Tampa Bay Devil Raysâa hapless franchise that had debuted in 1998 and was left battered and embarrassed by a cheapskate owner. The dynamic duo exorcised the "Devil" and rebranded the team the Rays, repaired community and corporate relations, and used a model approach to build the 2008 World Series champions. The book's title comes from Sternberg telling Keri that the Rays had to do everything 2% better to beat the odds in professional sports' toughest division. Keri, a financial reporter, takes inspiration from Michael Lewis's trailblazing Moneyball, and can recount a ball game and break down revenue with equal ability. His flair for pitching opinion spares neither Major League Baseball nor the Rays organizationâwhose tightly guarded front-office honchos granted Keri generous access. The result is an eye-opening look at where the business of America's pastime is headed.