"Let me ask you this," says Billy. "If Jeremy Brown looked as good in a uniform as Majewski [a Greek Kouros who played outfield for the University of Texas], where on this board would you put him?"

The scouts pretend to consider this. Nobody says anything so Pitter says it for them: "He'd be in that first column." A first-round pick.

"You guys really are trying to sell jeans, aren't you?" says Billy. And on that note of affectionate disgust, he ends the debate. He simply takes Jeremy Brown's nameplate and moves him from the top of the second column on the Big Board to the bottom of the first, from #17 to #15. Jeremy Brown, whose name had somehow failed to turn up on Baseball America's list of the top twenty-five amateur catchers, who serious scouts believed should never be a pro baseball player, is now a first-round draft choice of the Oakland A's.

"Since we're talking about Brown anyway," says Paul, which wasn't exactly true, since the scouts were now distinctly not talking about Brown, "there's a list of hitters I want to talk about. All of these guys share certain qualities. They are the eight guys we definitely want. And we want all eight of these guys" He reads a list:

      Jeremy Brown 
      Stephen Stanley 
      John Baker 
      Mark Kiger 
      Shaun Larkin 
      John McCurdy 
      Brant Colamarino 
      Brian Stavisky

All eight are college players. Most of them are guys the scouts either did not particularly like, or, in a few cases, don't really know. A young man rises to put their names on the board. Paul quickly organizes them, like a dinner guest who has spilled his wine and hopes to clean it up before the host notices. When he's finished, the board is a market but from a particular point of view, that of a trader who possesses, or believes he possesses, superior knowledge.

With that, the coup was complete. Paul's list of hitters were distinctly not guys the scouts found driving around. They were guys Paul found surfing the Internet. Some of the names the older scouts do not even recognize. The evaluation of young baseball players had been taken out of the hands of old baseball men and placed in the hands of people who had what Billy valued most (and what Billy didn't have), a degree in something other than baseball.

"There's some serious on-base percentage up there," says Billy. No one else says anything. The room is filled with silence.

"We got three guys at the top of the board that no one has ever heard of," Pitter finally says, with just a trace of pride.

"There isn't a board in the game that looks like this one," agrees Bogie.

Bogie brought into the draft room something unique: vast experience to which he had no visceral attachment. He'd been in the game for nearly fifty years. He'd seen a lot, perhaps everything, and he was willing to forget it, if asked. As it happened, one of the things he had seen, back in 1980, was a high school game in San Diego. That was the year that the Mets took Darryl Strawberry with the first overall pick in the draft. But that year there was another high school player, who, in his ability to conjure fantasies in the baseball scouting mind, rivaled Strawberry. Bogie had gone to see him at the behest of the Houston Astros. Great body, plus wheels, plus arm, good instincts, and the ability to hit the ball over light towers. To top it off, he'd scored higher than any other prospect on the psychological tests. Bogie had phoned Houston and told the front office that he had found a better prospect than Darryl Strawberry: Billy Beane.

When asked which player, on the Oakland A's draft board, most resembled the young Billy Beane, Bogie said, "Shit, man. There is no Billy Beane. Not up there." When asked why, he'd said, "Billy was a guy you could dream on," and left it to you to understand that Billy Beane, the general manager, had just systematically eliminated guys "you could dream on." But when asked what became of those still unforgotten dreams, Bogie hesitated. He looked over and met the eye of the grown-up Billy Beane.

"That's enough!" said Billy. He'd only been pretending not to listen. Bogie just smiled, shrugged, and said no more.