Pun Salad

Perhaps a baseball movie for people who don't like baseball movies? It was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. In an interesting case of life imitating art, it got skunked at the end of the season.

Anyway: it's the story of Oakland A's manager Billy Beane, as played by Brad Pitt. (When they film my life story, I want Brad Pitt to play me too, OK?) After the A's almost-but-not-quite 2001 season, their superstars are moving on to more lucrative positions with richer teams. (Johnny Damon to the Red Sox, for example.) Beane doesn't have the budget to hire equivalent replacements. What to do?

What he does is semi-revolutionary: during a visit to the Cleveland Indians, Beane notices a tubby nerd (played by Jonah Hill) to whom management listens when making player deals. Why? The nerd is a fan of Sabermetrics, the technique of mining baseball stats to discover undervalued players, who might be had on the cheap. This is in contrast to the subjective guidance Beane is getting from his team of old-school ex-jock scouts. Beane hires the nerd, and proceeds to build a team according to Sabermetrics principles, at the risk of his job and reputation. And also to the scorn of his coach (Art Howe, played convincingly by Philip Seymour Hoffman). The movie shows how this played out during the 2002 season.

Fine actors are working from a very intelligent (and occasionally very funny) script here, and the results are excellent. I especially liked this bit, where Beane and coach Ron Washington are trying to convince Scott Hatteberg to play first for Oakland:

Scott Hatteberg: I've only ever played catcher.

Billy Beane: It's not that hard, Scott. Tell him, Wash.

Ron Washington: It's incredibly hard.

Brad Pitt seems to be turning into Robert Redford, by the way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.