I had a nice little conversation with him. He seems happy to be here, quick to smile.

He's happy to be here. And he's quick to smile.

I've always been intellectually restless, but it is the building part of it that most interests me. It is the constructing of the team that is my favorite part. Anyone who is familiar with the history of the A's franchise, even dating back to Philadelphia, knows that every five or 10 years, you have to tear it apart and rebuild it.

I just talked to a young lady, a freshman at Santa Barbara. She's taking a course, and Moneyball's one of the required readings. This young lady could dream of one day becoming a general manager.

Quite frankly, I can't get enough of soccer. I tell my jingoistic friends in the United States there's a reason why it is the world's No. 1 sport. The rest of the planet can't be wrong.

The math works. Over the course of a season, there's some predictability to baseball. When you play 162 games, you eliminate a lot of random outcomes. There's so much data that you can predict: individual players' performances and also the odds that certain strategies will pay off.