Baseball teams need to follow others' road to success

	Billy Beane heads the Gonzaga of MLB. Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Baseball teams could learn a lot from the NCAA tournament, but they're not going to.

During the past few weeks, I've read several articles about colleges with up-and-coming basketball programs that are trying to take the next step into the big time. They've included phrases like "become the next Gonzaga" or "duplicate Gonzaga's success" or "grow cool mustaches like that kid from Gonzaga." Wichita State, Pacific, San Diego State -- these schools are all looking at the programs that have done it successfully, and trying to figure out what's in the secret sauce. According to one story in The New York Times, Montana coach Larry Krystkowiak has even asked the people at Gonzaga directly. About the winning, not the mustaches. And every time I read one of these stories, I wonder why baseball teams stubbornly refuse to do the same.

The Minnesota Twins and the Oakland A's are the Zags of Major League Baseball (except that the average baseball fan actually knows what state they play in): Their budgets are minuscule compared with the big boys, so rather than continually playing financial catch-up, they've found ways to succeed under circumstances that won't change anytime soon. But there are two big differences. The first is that Moneyball author Michael Lewis published a detailed manual of exactly how the A's do it -- the secret family recipe is printed on the side of the box. You'd think that would make the copycats' jobs a whole lot easier, but here's the second difference: there are no copycats. In fact, rather than trying to do the things that have given their small-market brethren consistent success for several years running, many other teams outwardly reject the A's methods as wrongheaded.

So why aren't the ball clubs that envy the A's success changing the way they operate in their efforts to achieve that same success? Why aren't the front offices in Milwaukee and Tampa Bay stalking Oakland GM Billy Beane? Why aren't Pirates and Royals staffers calling the Twins every day and begging for advice? Why do we sing Take Me out to the Ballgame when we're already at the ballgame? Sorry, I got a little carried away there with the questions.