GUEST COLUMN: "Moneyball" Movie Review

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Moneyball Movie Review

by Kevin Faber

The 2011 movie Moneyball follows Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in the true story of how the former baseball player turned general manager of the Oakland A's attempted to build a good team in 2002 with a lower budget than most baseball teams are afforded by using statistics to recruit people that the rest of the industry considered either underdogs or altogether throwaways. Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand, Beane's right-hand man and the one who specialized in the statistics that they ended up using in their new strategy.

Beane and Brand had an uphill battle from the start, especially since most of the people on Beane's recruiting team, like the rest of the industry, were still using old-fashioned methods of looking at each individual athlete and basing their picks off of how popular an athlete was, how old they were, and a variety of other factors that, overall, did not really matter to the core of the game. When Beane and Brand began talking about data standardization and how it related to their picks, they were ridiculed and laughed off. Fortunately, Beane, as the general manager, was able to do things his way. This was especially important, because if Beane had not been in charge, the story would not have existed. If he had just been another one of the recruiting team members, his opinion would have been drowned out before he would have even had a chance to explain his viewpoint.

One of the things that was painful to watch was how Beane distanced himself in his team from the beginning. As someone who had placed all of his eggs in the proverbial basket that was his baseball career when he was younger and who turned out to not be the star that the recruiters hoped he would be, he did not want to bond with his team in case he had to let them go. If he distanced himself, he would be able to let them go easier, without having to feel the guilt of them possibly already having put roots down in Oakland or having to pay things off such as student loans. Fortunately, he was able to overcome his anger and resentment of past events enough to bond more with his team, which is what the team needed. If your general manager does not believe in you when he hand-picked you, what is the point of settling into a team dynamic? It would not be a shock if a lot of the team members were on the edge of their seats, waiting for the other shoe to drop and either be traded or simply let go, which unfortunately did end up happening for a few of them. 

While Beane and Brand were ridiculed by most of the sports commentators in the beginning and even the coach of the Oakland A's was fighting them, they did end up convincing people later on in the season. The A's made a comeback, but they were only able to do that because the owner of the team was willing to let Beane and Brand play it out for an agreed amount of time.

Something that was heartbreaking was that, at the end, though Beane was offered a position on the Red Sox management team, he wanted to stay with Oakland. Boston did end up winning the World Series a couple years later using Beane and Brand's strategy, while Beane is trying to get that perfect winning streak to this day with the same strategy. 

People watching this movie should take a few things away from this. Teamwork is not limited to the team on the field. Instead, everyone from the owner to the worst player should be valued and working together to help the team play their best and get on as many bases as possible. Also that, while a new strategy might seem crazy, it is worth seeing if it works. Highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for something to add to their inspirational sport movie list.