This is a great film about America’s favorite pastime, baseball. It’s the true story about how science and analytical mathematics were used by two stalwart fellows at the Oakland A’s – a fat Yale graduate (the brains) and Billy Beane, the congenial General Manager who just couldn’t resist the temptation to take a ragtag bunch of has-beens, never-beens, and jelly-beens and mold them into a force to reckon with on the diamond.
Brad Pitt clocks a super performance as a good ol’ boy who just plain loves the game, hates the monetization of it, but who still manages to rise above it all with some infield dirt obfuscations.
Pure math applied to pure sport is somewhat ruthless, for sure. And, in truth, it doesn’t work – never has, never will. It takes the human touch of a kind manager with the heart of a lion, the inspired leadership of an older player on his last legs, and the reluctant enthusiasm of a creepy Ivy Leaguer to share the magic of numbers with us lesser mortals.
The mystical allure of moneyball is the genuine power of knowledge. It’s teaching players their foibles and strengths revealed by video analysis. It’s playing team strengths against the indomitable odds and – most of all – it’s knowing more about your opponent than he knows about himself.
The one profound truism I gained from this heartfelt film (other than “God help us if anybody puts numbers to politics – POLLS – Crap, polls… statistics! They already have !$%#^!) came from one scene toward the end with the filthy rich, supremely arrogant owner of the Boston Red Sox.
“The nice thing about being rich,” said he, “is that I can do whatever I want… The whole world can say one thing, and I can do just the opposite if I want to.”
Of course, this is exactly what Billy Beane did, and he wasn’t rich – not money-wise, but certainly love-wise; maybe.
This rich guy, so proud and so supremely confident; he and his peers take umbrage with the status quo, despise it; flaunt their power to influence it.
The rich have the power to change the world, and they relish the chance to do so – adore it even. They change the world to make themselves more money (the Red Sox won the pennant the next year, and I’m sure this guy was so effing full of himself, still is), and to glorify themselves.
We can now blame the rich for all that is wrong with the world. (Lord knows, if you have spent any time on this website, you know just how bad things are.) They admit to it.
They did it, because they could. Who cares if their influence is for good or not. (Think 5 Too Big to Fail Banks on Wall Street that own derivatives worth $600 trillion – ten times the total annual output of the whole world.)
Thank the good Lord for baseball. Of all the sciences and disciplines and fields of endeavor, baseball alone can embrace statistics and still keep its heart.
Thank Billy Beane.
