Mickey Mantle once said, “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” Was he referring to baseball as a metaphor for the game of life? Is wining what counts or how you play the game? Moneyball doesn’t answer the big questions, but it’s a hell of a 9 innings.
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, Oakland A’s GM, in Moneyball which begins on 10/15/01 with their loss to the NY Yankees and ends with the A’s ALDS loss to the Minnesota Twins. The low budget A’s are gutted by the big spending Yankees and Bambino chasing Red Sox. Beane enlists Yale economics major Pete Brand, quietly played by Jonah Hill, and the science of numbers to build a winning team.
Beane hardballs his staff and puts together a group of misfits and injury laden has-beens who go on to a record-breaking 20 game winning streak that no one can quite explain. Even if you don’t know the story, the A’s 2002 season is a home run. But it’s Pitt’s real life acting which makes this movie a solid hit. Why does the movie work? Because it’s damn good!
When the “Beane counter” comes to Fenway on a $12.5 mil GM offer from Sox owner John Henry, the scenes of Yawkey Way and our beloved park are simply magical. We all know how it turned out. We’ve exorcised our “curse”, while Beane remained in the wasteland which is Oakland. The A’s have not yet won the only game which really counts in baseball, the last game of the season. Pitt’s Beane captures the romantic notion of baseball while questioning what is all means. Pitt is simply “pitch” perfect. At the end, Beane is still enjoying the show and so will you.
Baseball is a game of numbers yet played with emotion. We all have our most memorable baseball moments. Here in Boston it’s coming back to beat the Yankee’s after going down 3, the year after we lost an October game to them we should have won because of a hitter named Boone. Most recently I was lucky enough to be at Fenway when Jacoby Ellsbury hit an inside the park homerun, yet the Sox lost 3 out of 4 to Baltimore and are in jeopardy of not making the playoffs. No matter which team you root for, you’ll enjoy the story, acting, and MLB footage of Moneyball.
P.S. My thanks to KL and my three sons for teaching me to love the game.
