‘Moneyball’ makes the smart play

In theaters Friday: Anonymous [limited], In Time, Like Crazy [limited], Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty [limited], The Rum Diary

New on DVD/Blu-ray: Captain America: The First Avenger, The People vs. George Lucas, Winnie the Pooh

Tomorrow night may see the Texas Rangers claim their first World Series title in the history of the franchise. The Rangers spend less roughly $108 million on player salaries than the league’s big spenders the New York Yankees. In fact, out of the league’s 30 teams, the Rangers are outspent in large quantities by 11 ball clubs who are watching the World Series from the couch this season.

The whys and hows of a smaller budget team being the best in the league is the subject of Michael Lewis’s fascinating book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which has been adapted into a Brad Pitt-staring drama in theaters now. Lewis’ book and Pitt’s film argue that the statistics that were important and most accurate in the assessment of talent and value in the 1950s and 1960s—little things like RBI, stolen bases and batting average—can and should be replaced by a more detailed set of metrics like overall on base percentage. “He gets on base” is a mantra for Pitt’s character, real life Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane who threw out the scouting rulebook and applied this new formula to field a team of players so highly undervalued by traditional statistics that he was able to better compete with teams spending tens of millions more on their rosters every season.

The film, largely, is about more than baseball. It’s a story of determination, self-confidence and new ideas. Moneyball sets up Beane as an outsider with a new gameplan against the staunch insiders (his longtime scouts and harried coach Art Howe, played by a gruff Philip Seymour Hoffman). What can a fresh perspective and an honest look at what the actual challenges are ahead rather than the perceived problems.

“Is there anybody out there right now that can replace [all-star home run machine Jason] Giambi?” Beane asks of his scouts.

“No,” they reply.

“And if there was, could we afford him?”

“Well, no,” they reluctantly admit.

“Then what the f*** are you talking about?!” Bean shouts. The scouts don’t see the true challenge facing them, but Beane does. How do you compete with the big boys? How do you do more with less? It’s a question many of us have to ask in any area of commerce and career.

Pitt really shines as Beane, a superstitious general manager still wounded by his own disappointing pro career, a man who wants to not just win but change the game forever. It’s a role he was ready to play for Steven Soderbergh, former Baton Rouge resident and baseball fanatic, until eleventh hour script changes and disagreements in 2009 bumped the project back and Soderbergh left for other films. Pitt says he just couldn’t let the role go, and stuck with it.

Not without its flaws, Moneyball misses a few dramatic and comedic opportunities to tap even deeper emotional reservoirs, but conversely it boasts a lean script co-written by Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin who proves a sports movie can be about something more than what goes on between the lines. If you don’t follow baseball—and there’s no reason you have to in order to enjoy this film—I don’t want to spoil it for you, but Beane’s new strategy pays off in ways big and small while attracting an assault of controversy within the organization and without it. If baseball is a metaphor for life, Moneyball is the film this game deserves.