260th New Thing - Watched Moneyball

I didn't have time to post last night, therefore I'm posting this a day late as this occurred yesterday (Fri 7/6/12).

We watched a movie entitled Moneyball with Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and
Robin Wright, that came out on September 23, 2011. It is a biographical sports drama film that is based on Michael Lewis's 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's (would-be baseball superstar) attempts to assemble a competitive team. Heading into the 2002 season, Beane faces a situation where his small-market Oakland A's have lost their 3 star players to big market clubs (and their enormous salaries) and is left to rebuild his team and compete with a 3rd of their payroll. Beane takes on the system by challenging the fundamental tenants of the game. He looks outside of baseball, to the dismissed theories of Bill James, and hires Peter Brand, a brainy, number-crunching, Yale-educated economist. Together they take on conventional wisdom with a willingness to reexamine everything and armed with computer driven statistical analysis long ignored by the baseball establishment. They go after players overlooked and dismissed by the rest of baseball for being too odd, too old, too injured or too much trouble, but who all have key skills that are undervalued. Ultimately this experiment will lead not only to a change in the way the game is played, but to an outcome that would leave Billy with a new understanding that transcends the game and delivers him to a new place. They lost most of the games in the beginning of the season. I thought it was amazing when Oakland has a winning streak of a record-breaking 20 wins in a row. The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Actor and Best Picture in 2012.

I thought it was a very interesting story-line and I enjoy the sport of baseball. I don't remember any of these events in 2001 or 2002. I guess because I was in college at WVU at the time. It had some good sport scenes and some comedic relief. IMDB gave it a 7.7 out of 10 and and I agree with that rating.

What did you do today?