Childhood & Early Life
He was born on March 29, 1962, in Orlando, Florida, US. His father was a naval officer who showed him the way to pitch. Beane was raised in Mayport, Florida and San Diego, California.
He studied at the ‘Mt. Carmel High School,’ located in Rancho Peñasquitos, San Diego. While in school, he displayed immense talent in baseball, basketball, and football. He was included in the university baseball team by his high-school coach for the final game of his freshman season.
While in his sophomore and junior years of high school, Beane garnered a batting average of .501, which however dropped to .300 during his senior season. Despite such a significant decline in his batting average, the scouts held his talent in high regard. Beane eventually resolved to take his baseball career forward and gave up playing football.
‘Stanford University’ made an attempt to induct him as the quarterback on a joint baseball–football scholarship for the ‘Stanford Cardinal’ football team, replacing the then-sophomore John Elway.
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Career
Impressed by the skills of Beane, the American professional baseball team ‘New York Mets,’ which received the first pick of the 1980 MLB Draft, considered selecting him.
Although many teams thought that he would not sign with a professional team and would attend ‘Stanford’ instead, he went on to sign with the ‘Mets’ and received a signing bonus of $125,000.
He was allotted to the minor league baseball team ‘Little Falls Mets,’ affiliated with the ‘New York Mets.’ ‘Little Falls Mets’ played in the Class A ‘New York–Penn League.’ Contrary to expectations, Beane strived in his first season with a batting average of .210.
In 1981, he was promoted to the minor league baseball team ‘Lynchburg Mets,’ which is a Class A ‘Advanced' team in the ‘Carolina League.’ The following year, he was promoted to the ‘Jackson Mets’ of the Class AA ‘Texas League.’ His batting average in the league remained .220.
He was with the ‘Jackson Mets’ till 1984, following which he garnered his first promotion to the MLB. He made his MLB debut on September 13, 1984, for the ‘New York Mets’ and played in a total of five games for the team in their 1984 season.
Most of the 1985 season saw him playing for ‘Tidewater Tides’ of the Class AAA ‘International League,’ apart from appearing in eight games for the ‘New York Mets.’ The same season saw him leading the ‘Tides’ with 19 home runs and 77 runs with a batting average of .284.
As the 1985 season ended, he was traded by the ‘Mets’ to the Minneapolis-based team ‘Minnesota Twins.’ He appeared in 80 of their games in the 1986 season, garnering a batting average of .216.
He played in 32 games for the minor league baseball team ‘Toledo Mud Hens,’ affiliated to the ‘Detroit Tigers.’ Following the 1987 spring training, Beane was sent to the ‘Portland Beavers’ of the ‘Pacific Coast League,’ where his batting average remained .285.
Following the 1987 roster expansion, he was called up by the ‘Minnesota Twins.’ Subsequently, he played in 12 of their games in the 1987 season.
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In 1988, he was traded by the ‘Minnesota Twins’ to the ‘Detroit Tigers.’ He spent most of that season with ‘Toledo,’ a Class AAA affiliate of the ‘Detroit Tigers,’ after being optioned in late April that year. He played for the ‘Tigers’ in 6 games in the 1988 season.
Following the 1988 season, he signed with the California-based ‘Oakland Athletics.’ During the 1989 season he played in 37 games for the ‘A’s,’ batting .241 in 79 at bats. He was also seen with the Triple-A affiliate minor league team of the ‘Pacific Coast League,’ namely, the ‘Tacoma Tigers.’
The ‘A’s’ signed him again for the 1990 season and following the spring training, he was allotted to the minor leagues. Not happy with the way his career had shaped up, Beane spoke to the ’general manager of the ‘A’s’, Sandy Alderson, in April that year, for a scout’s job. Till 1993, he served as a scout and was then promoted to the role of the assistant general manager.
On October 17, 1997, he became the general manager of the ‘A’s,’ succeeding Alderson, who had begun using the principles of sabermetrics, an empirical analysis of baseball that measures in-game activity.
As the new general manager, Beane followed his predecessor in applying the principles of sabermetrics in a continuous effort to make the ‘A’s’ one of the most cost-effective baseball teams. He applied this approach on the players and that made the teams reassess their way of player evaluation. Soon, the general managers of other teams started following his strategy.
Such statistical analyses by Beane and by his assistant DePodesta saw the ‘A’s’ win 20 games in a row in 2002, thus becoming the first team of the ‘American League’ baseball to achieve such a feat in over a hundred years of its history.
His application of the sabermetric principles, as the general manager of the ‘A’s’ and the way the team benefitted from it became the subject of the 2003 best-seller by Michael Lewis, titled ‘Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.’ An American sports drama based on the book was released in September 2011. The film, starring Brad Pitt as Beane, was a huge hit.
His contract as the general manager was extended till 2012, on April 15, 2005. He was awarded a small ownership of the ‘A’s’ by its new owner, Lewis Wolff. In February 2012, his contract was further extended till 2019.
On January 4, 2007, the American cloud-computing company ‘NetSuite’ declared him as one of the members of their board of directors.
In December 2009, he made it to the list of the ‘Top 10 GMs/Executives of the Decade’ released by ‘Sports Illustrated.’
In March 2015, he was inducted as an advisor by the Dutch football club ‘AZ Alkmaar.’ On October 5 that year, the ‘A’s’ declared that he had been promoted to the role of the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations.
