William Lamar Beane III (born March 29, 1962) is an American former professional baseball player and current front office executive. He is the executive vice president of baseball operations and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball (MLB); he is also minority owner of soccer clubs Barnsley of the EFL League One in England and AZ Alkmaar of the Eredivisie in the Netherlands. From 1984 to 1989 he played in MLB as an outfielder for the New York Mets, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, and Oakland Athletics. He joined the Athletics' front office as a scout in 1990, was named general manager after the 1997 season, and was promoted to executive vice president after the 2015 season. A first-round pick in the MLB draft by the Mets, Beane failed to meet the expectations of scouts, who projected him as a star. In his front-office career, Beane has applied statistical analysis (known as sabermetrics) to baseball, which has led teams to reconsider how they evaluate players. He is the subject of Michael Lewis's 2003 book on baseball economics, Moneyball, which was made into a 2011 film starring Brad Pitt as Beane. Early life Beane grew up in Mayport, Florida, and San Diego, California, the child of a career military family. His father, a naval officer, taught him how to pitch. Beane attended Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego, where he excelled at baseball, football, and basketball. The high school coach added Beane to the varsity baseball team for the last game of his freshman season. Beane batted .501 during his sophomore and junior years of high school. In his senior season, his batting average dropped to .300. Despite the decrease in batting average, scouts were enamored with Beane's talent. Beane gave up football to avoid an injury that could prematurely end his baseball career. Despite this, Stanford University tried to recruit Beane on a joint baseball–football scholarship as the quarterback who would succeed then-sophomore John Elway for the Stanford Cardinal football team. Baseball career Playing career The New York Mets, who had the first overall selection of the 1980 Major League Baseball Draft, liked Beane's talent and considered choosing him with the first pick. Because many teams believed he would attend Stanford and not sign with a professional team, Beane fell to the 23rd pick, where he was taken by the Mets, who had two other first-round picks