Moneyball

I am not the inveterate sports fan I once was, not even close. I grew up cheering for college and pro baseball and football teams along with my buddies, usually spouting ERAs and RBIs for the Yankees or how many fumbles or yards rushed for the Redskins or Dolphins. I had the trading cards and the flat bubblegum (that tasted like the cards themselves). My obsessiveness lasted well into my 20s. But somewhere along the way, my enthusiasm waned. Was I becoming jaded by stories of drug abuse among the players? Free agency? Lockouts? Strikes? Asshole fans? A little of all. Mainly though, it just became an exercise in masochism. "Wait'll next year" was got wearying a bit more each year.

 I stopped watching games with any regularity. This is something for which my wife is I'm sure very happy. But I still root for the Chicago Cubs, speaking of masochism. Baseball remains the most interesting game to me as it is like nothing else. If you examine and distill most of the sports that get airtime down to their bare essences: you'll find a goal at either end of a playing field with players trying to get that ball (or puck) to their opponents' side. Yes, that's a gross oversimplification. Baseball is a totally different animal, and I love it for that. I also love that it is so uniquely American, much like another of my favorite pasttimes, jazz appreciation. I do follow the scores and League standings, if not every minute of every play. But I'll be darned if I shell out $15 for the MLB iPhone app! I don't memorize statistics anymore. 

Certainly not like director Barrett Miller's MONEYBALL's Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). These guys absorb stats as fervently as would many fans and scouts, but then base their entire team roster on strictly the numbers, part of a study called sabermetrics, though I don't recall hearing it called that in this film. Such a method utilizes purely objective methodology. How many times did Jody Reed make it to second base?, etc. Beane is the Oakland A's General Manager. As we see in snippets of flashback throughout the movie, he was once a promising player who suffered a few lackluster seasons before hanging up his glove and joining management. As MONEYBALL (based on Michael Lewis' excellent 2003 book of the same name) opens, he watches the New York Yankees hand his team a World Series loss at the end of the 2001 season. The immediate future looks grim, what with the departure of star players like Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon and a limited payroll, especially compared to a club like the Yankees. The lack of funds for player salaries drives Beane's reasoning in embracing sabermetrics. He is further inspired by Brand, a Yale economics grad who has never even swung a bat. Beane hires him as assistant GM. 

 MONEYBALL then puts us in the backroom with all the old school scouts, who kibbitz around a table and select athletes based on (the scouts') experience and intuition, how ugly the player's girlfriend is, and so on. Beane finds unwillingness on their part to select players based on things like On Base Percentage. Eventually, some of the old guys quit/get fired. The A's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is skeptical of the assembled roster (which will include Dave Justice, considered past his prime by the early 00s) of mostly little knowns and the methods of their recruitment. The 2002 season starts badly. Beane is forced to make some trades, but he convinces everyone to stay the course. Things eventually turn around dramatically and American League history is made when the A's win 20 consecutive games. That's not the end of the story. It all sounds so academic and dry, and yes, we see a few graphs and charts.

But in addition to some fascinating explanations of sabermetrics, MONEYBALL takes time to draw solid characterizations. Pitt, in one of his best ever performances, plays Beane with a healthy dose of enigma and introspection. Every third shot is of him staring out over an empty field or bowing his head (as if in prayer) in his office. He chooses to keep an arm's length from the players and never attends the games (superstition?). This behavior only makes a volatile situation even more uncomfortable. But he's not entirely ice cold; a subplot follows the divorced Beane's relationship with his daughter, who he adores. Miller handles these scenes with a sweetness that leavens the overall temperament of the movie. They do not feel tacked on or added merely to appeal to the softhearted in the audience. Jonah Hill is also quite good as the green college grad who represents a growing generation of virtual geniuses who never really get their hands dirty, don't make decisions on hunches. Therefore, he's not quite as comfortable with unavoidable aspects of the job, like having to tell a player that he's just been traded, or worse, sent down to the Minors. 

Those scenes are brief but effective, reminding me of Ron Shelton's BULL DURHAM at times. But a majority of the drama in MONEYBALL (adapted by star screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin) is of the conflict between the Old and New Ways of thinking. Seasoned baseball fans will either wince or be inspired (perhaps both) by this true story. The film is not slanted one way or the other, but the prologue does state that The Boston Red Sox finally reversed their curse by winning the 2004 World Series against the Yankees. That team was recruited via sabermetrics.....