Runs Butted In
By Rachel Swan
East Bay Express, August 24th, 2006
Eric Hsu is a number cruncher. As teacher of a variety of math courses at San Francisco State University, including calculus and math for elementary school teachers, he enjoys bringing quantitative analysis into the trenches of everyday life. Take baseball, for instance. Hsu has casually followed the Oakland A’s since moving to Berkeley for graduate school in 1991, but didn’t become a diehard fanatic until he read Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, in which the author uses business strategy and logic to understand baseball better. Hsu summarizes the book thus: Moneyball’s protagonist, the Athletics’ general manager Billy Beane, realized he could field a successful small-budget team by hiring veterans and rookies who lack superstar appeal, but who still have a good on-base percentage and patience at the plate. To Hsu, this whole “underdog business” seemed fascinating. He was hooked.
Though a rabid baseball fan, Hsu doesn’t fit the stereotypical macho dude profile. In fact, he’s a veritable member of the Oakland A’s intelligentsia, if such a thing exists. The mathematician regularly contributes to the popular A’s blog Athletics Nation, arguably one of the most imaginative sports-fan sites on the Internet today. Hsu says one thing he really likes about the blog is that it appeals to female sports fans. “I find that really nice,” he says. “It makes for more sane conversations.” Hsu, whose blogger alias is Apricot, might err on the sensitive-guy side when compared to his Athletics Nation peers (the male ones, at least): “About a year ago there was a controversy because some guys didn’t like women talking about players’ butts,” he explains. “I didn’t like the way that people who were criticizing all the butt talk were trying to make Athletics Nation more of a boy environment, and be hostile to the women on the site.”
Arguing that butt appreciation is “a legitimate part of fandom,” Hsu found a way to challenge his male peers. “On a lark one day, I decided I wanted to write a game in which people would decide definitively which player has the best butt,” he says. Dubbed Moneybutt, the game is a spin-off of Moneyball — the Moneybutt logo is a cross between the Lewis book cover and a Picasso print Hsu admires. Participants scour the Web for photos containing two “entities” — say, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, or Gandhi and chocolate cheesecake — and post their findings to the Moneybutt Web site. There, they can look at other people’s photos and vote on them. The idea is to cast your vote for whichever entity you like better, Hsu says, using whatever criteria you choose. The program quantifies and posts the current rankings for “A’s-related entities.” Rich Harden was in the lead as of his July 27 post, although some of the non-A’s-related entities are a lot more memorable. “One thing I really enjoy is to make sacrilegious, blasphemous choices. For example, I just chose Ramon Hernandez over Gandhi (shrug),” wrote blogger Rubin Sierra on July 28. Hsu seems to agree. He says no one could decide on Katie Holmes versus Tom Cruise or !TiVo versus a hammock. Hsu even recalls seeing a grilled-cheese Virgin Mary in one photo, though he can’t remember the other entity. “A worthy opponent would be Hungry Hungry Hippo,” he says. “I’d vote for the hippo.”
The A’s play the Boston Red Sox Wednesday afternoon at McAfee Coliseum at 12:35 p.m. The home stand continues with the Baltimore Orioles (September 1-3) and the always pesky Texas Rangers (September 4-6). For tickets, go to Oaklandathletics.com; to learn more about Moneybutt, check out Owlmelon.com/moneybutt