I don't know Voros McCracken, but I found the story this week about him very sad, particularly the part where he went to work for the Boston Red Sox – who have something like $300M in annual revenue – and got paid $30,000 a year before being let go by the organization.
If he'd been just a computer programmer or an excel wizard, instead of a guy who both had those skills and some serious vision and creativity in baseball, he'd be making real money, and his appearance and behavior (read the article) wouldn't be grounds for dismissal. No disrespect to anyone in software who's not like this, but over my 15 years in high-tech, the archetypal programmer rolls in to work around 11, wearing the same thing he did the day before (and the day before that) and makes a lot of math jokes.
Sports analysis is a strange business – most teams want a guy with technical skills, an understanding of the game, and leadership and management abilities. And for all that, they pay half of what they pay their database programmers, and they let a guy go even if he's returning value on investment.
