I FINALLY saw Moneyball last night.
I never got around to seeing it in the theater. You’d think I’d be there as it combined a passion of mine (baseball stats) and a passion of my wife’s (looking at Brad Pitt.)
But it didn’t happen. And I popped the DVD in last night and my wife was asleep before they traded Jeremy Giambi.
So much for it being entertaining even without knowledge of baseball.
I know a lot of baseball fans who did NOT like the movie. Some were people who just didn’t buy Billy Beane’s philosophy or thought he was overrated.
Others pointed out some of the factors of the A’s success in the early 2000s that were left out.
That bugged me a little as well. I mean while the A’s made the playoffs in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, they had Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson. Having one of those three start 60% of your games MIGHT just be a bigger reason for a 103 win season than Scott Hatteberg taking a walk.
And of course the elephant (no reference to the A’s mascot intended) in the room is of course the steroids. Why is getting on base so important? So those home runs would be 3 run shots rather than solo shots. (Speaking of shots where are the shots of Tejada shooting up?)
And yeah, baseball lifer Art Howe being reduced to an emasculated bumbler might be a bit cruel.
But I put that aside and enjoyed it the same reason why I like Oliver Stone’s JFK.
If you watch Stone’s movie as a factual film, your head will resemble Kennedy’s in the limo. (Too soon?)
There are leaps in logic in the film and fictitious characters created to connect the dots. And The Magic Bullet is demonstrated with two people who are NOT sitting in the position that Kennedy and Connelly were seated in the car!!!
At first I hated the film.
But now I love it. I don’t watch it as a history lesson. I watch it as a mystery movie. And with that in mind, it is a fascinating and very skillfully made mystery film that features Kevin Bacon dressed as Marie Antoinette in one scene (as all good mysteries should.)
That’s how I view Moneyball.
It was a compelling underdog story. It was the story of a guy who had no choice but to try something different and drastic to win.
Yeah there was no Peter Brand but rather he was named Paul DePodesta. But it is more interesting to see a jock like Brad Pitt paired with a very unathletic Jonah Hill.
Sure the whole fight over Scott Hatteberg and his playing time was exaggerated, but it made his walk off homer all the more dramatic.
Brad Pitt was great and he was pitch perfect as a failed player turned floundering GM.
It was like The Social Network, but with baseball.
So yeah, I dug it.
In fact I feel a little guilty that I was rooting for the Twins in the 2002 Division Series!
If I knew that Billy Beane had an adorable daughter who sang “The Show” by Lenka, I would never have been rooting against the A’s!
Sully Baseball 