Quick, name the saddest team in baseball. After this September the answer is the Boston Red Sox, but overall it always seems to be the Oakland Athletics. Despite having a few World Series championships under their belts, the A’s stand as the team that can never seem to win and everyone feels sorry for.
And it all comes down to money. Who has money? The New York Yankees do. Who doesn’t? The Oakland Athletics. This was made painfully obvious in the opening scenes of “Moneyball”. In 2001, the Oakland Athletics made it to the playoffs despite having only a $39 million dollar payroll. They were up against the New York Yankees who had a payroll of $122 million. Of course the A’s lose and the star players that got them there now know that they can make the big money with other teams. The A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) has to put together a new team without the star players that helped them get to the playoffs.
In steps Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young economics graduate from Yale. Brand convinces Beane to forgo the usual method of baseball scouting and recruiting and replace it with a system revolving around statistics. Instead of picking players for their look or their swing Beane picks players for their stats like on base percentage. With Brand’s help Beane assembles a ragtag group of cheap players that no other team wants but have good stats that are underappreciated by other teams. They lose pretty badly at the start of the 2002 season, garnering criticism from the entire league for their unorthodox style. But as the season rolls on, the Oakland Atheletic’s start winning more and more games, eventually tying the Major League record of winning twenty games in a row.
Underdog stories are the best. True underdog stories are even better. It was fun watching the A’s, with no “stars” to speak of go up against the highest paid teams in baseball and win. Brad Pitt is one of the best actors around, expertly portraying a general manager putting his job on the line to offset baseball’s money disparity.
Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off. The A’s ended up losing to the Minnesota Twins in the playoffs. The rest of Major League Baseball took notice though, and adopted Beane’s strategy. The movie claims that the Boston Red Sox used the technique to help them finally win their first world series in 86 years. Although, after this season I think they need to relook at their strategy.
Making a boring premise exciting is hard. “Moneyball” makes it happen though. It is an entertaining movie for baseball and non-baseball fans alike. Sometimes it takes itself too seriously, because c’mon, it’s just a game, but for those who love inspirational sports movies, you won’t do much better than “Moneyball”.
-Christopher O’Connell 3.5 out of 4 stars