Moneyball ~ You don't have to like baseball to like the movie

This movie was fun, funny, exciting (if you’re like me and didn’t know or remember the true story), and very riveting. I found myself actually rooting for the Oakland A’s to win. How many movies do you know of can make you tense about games that have already been played, decided, and in the history books? Brad Pitt plays a very Robert Redford-like role. At times I actually thought it might be Redford on screen. His interactions with his movie daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey) were cute.

In the world of baseball, teams like the Oakland Athletics cannot compete financially with teams who can offer more money to players like the New York Yankees. What usually happens is that teams with less budget money develop players, make them great players, and then can’t afford them by the end of the season, so teams with more money can buy them up.

This guts the team each year. Call it fair or unfair, but it’s what Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), General Manager of the Oakland A’s has to live with every year, no matter how well the team finishes. Each year he begs for more money, to keep his players, or at least get completive new ones, and each year he’s told to do more with less. Billy stumbles across Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) while trying to make a trade with the Cleveland Indians.

Peter is an economist. He’s underappreciated, and usually ignored. Peter believes in Saber metrics. This is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence (like baseball statistics) rather than the “gut” feelings like scouts have been using for years. By measuring how many time the player gets on base, rather than how popular the player is, they figure out than many players who aren’t as well “liked” are cheaper, yet produce more collectively than a star player.

This ideas upsets the world of baseball, especially Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the Oakland A’s manager who thwarts Billy’s new concept by playing the players he wants to and screw the GM and his new system. Eventually through shrewdness, Billy gets Art to come around and the A’s go on to win 20 straight games. This isn’t a spoiler, its baseball history! J

Even if you’re not into baseball, this story of how facts win out over bias will make you smile. It's worth a watch in the theater.