Conscious

CHAPTER 4Your Return on Investment

There is nothing more exhilarating than sitting in the stands as sports history is being made. While these moments rarely happen in any sport, we've seen it happen in baseball's World Series two years in a row. In 2016, the Chicago Cubs broke their infamous 108-year drought, and in 2017, the Houston Astros finally took home a pennant to Texas. Baseball fans were ecstatic. After years of data-driven fandom, heart had made a welcome return to baseball.

Ever since the Moneyball revolution of 2002 replaced intuition and experience with data analytics, the heart side of the game was seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant. Baseball became a much colder and more clinical game. Traditional pillars of the sport, like stealing bases and playing the field, became less important and were replaced by the quest for higher batting averages. Franchises became brokers of individual players rather than builders of teams. This change had profound effects on the fans and left management wondering why ratings were slumping.

Enter Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs. He was hired away from the Boston Red Sox for his leadership prowess, particularly his ability to develop both talent and character in his team. He understood there was value in the passion of the players as well as in the numbers. Epstein's mission was to transform the Cubs into a World Series champion. It took him four years.

Epstein's own words say it best: “I feel ...