Batting 1.000

How many times have you heard this or even said it yourself?

"The movie wasn't as good as the book."

Well, here's a rarity for you.  The mind-numbingly dull book "Moneyball" has been turned into an exciting, brilliant, and clearly Oscar-worthy movie. 

Surprise.

I read the book by Michael Lewis when it was all the rage back in 2003.  It took me weeks, perhaps even a whole baseball season, to get through it.  Loaded with stats and computer talk, I felt like I was back in my high school calculus class.  I didn't understand that and I certainly couldn't comprehend a thing in this tome which detailed the 2002 Oakland Athletics' season as executed by a couple of computer geeks.

I am now one of those oldtime baseball fans who is uber-fond for the good ole days.  When I used to hear my dad wax poetically about New York Yankee teams of the 40s and 50s, I would scoff.  Now, as young'ins talk baseball with me and throw out statistical barometers like WARs and WHips, I discover that I am no longer the scoffer, but the scoffee.

This is not to say that I haven't been sucked into the stat world in the past.  The genesis of what happens in "Moneyball" comes from some ultimate digithead named Bill James, who, back in the late 80s, took these "sabermetrics" and published them in annual team analyses called Baseball Abstract. 

My good friend, the Bibster, got me turned on to these books and we'd anxiously wait each spring to hear what James' computer program had to say about our favorite team.  One pass through the book would have my head spinning and crammed with lots of useless numbers.  The more I got into these sabermetrics, the more I realized that there was one key element of the game of baseball that could never ever be measured.

Heart.

Frankly, Bill James could never have explained in numbers how the 1969 New York Mets managed to go from last place to winning the World Series with a team batting average barely over .230.  His analyses could not possibly tell us how a secondary Dodger team in 1988 beat all the odds and rode to the World Series with their star outfielder playing on one leg.  All the EXCEL formulae in the universe cannot relate to us how a Boston Red Sox team in 2004 came from three games down to beat the usually unbeatable New York Yankees in the League Championship Series simply because Dave Roberts stole second base.

There are countless other stories like that throughout the ages.  None of them explained by numbers.  All of them backed up by examples of heart, courage, and the good will of the baseball gods.

Whether you buy into sabermetrics or not, "Moneyball" is still a terrific cinematic adaptation of an otherwise meandering book.  Primarily because, amid all the stats that the Oakland Athletics' management used to rebuild their team, the script allowed us to see the heart behind those involved. 

Billy Beane, a former New York Met farmhand and a virtual failure on the field himself, is the general manager of the Oakland team.  In order to compete with teams like the Yankees who have a team salary that rivals the national debt, he employs stats like "on-base percentage" to populate his roster and hopefully manage to still field a winning team.  Billy hooks up with a youngish geek named Peter Brand, who helps him in his quest.  Brand's character is based on the real-life baseball executive Paul DePodesta, who refused to allow producers to use his real name.  Together, they share in the downs and ups of the Athletics' 2002 season.  Because, in baseball as in real life, there are downs and ups.

I've often said that, if you understand baseball, you can deal with life with all its successes and adversities.  "Moneyball" is a marvelous validation of my notion.  Even when you think you have all the answers, you don't.  When you think you're mired in shit, something rises you above the fray.  But, don't get too cocky because, unless you work hard, you may not stay aloft for very long. 

Baseball and life intertwined together one more time.

There is a character in the film that espouses my philosophy about an over-reliance on statistics by baseball executives.  He, too, reminds Billy Beane of the intangibles that cannot be measured.  The guy winds up being fired, but is ultimately and silently vindicated by the end of the film.  Even if you can't tell a fastball from a knuckleball, you can't help but understand the universal message that "Moneyball" wonderfully conveys with each and every frame.

Forget that "Benjamin Button" nonsense he was in.  "Moneyball" is the movie that puts Brad Pitt on the map as an actor.  Pitt captures perfectly the pain and suffering that must be the standard operating procedure of every baseball general manager.  Along with the torture at work, he juggles life as a divorced parent trying to be there for his young daughter.  In a sports movie, the homelife subplot always seems to get in the way.  In "Moneyball," the intricate family connections only help to give us the multi-leveled aspects of our lead character's DNA.

I've never liked Jonah Hill, but he is perfect as Brand/DePodesta.  Met fans will enjoy Philip Seymour Hoffman's point-on performance as the Athletics' snarly and vapid manager Art Howe.  Howe went on to manage the Mets for two years and was one of the worst skippers in that team's history.  He has not had a job since.  Hoffman, however, will work again.  And, Pitt, Hill, and Hoffman can also definitely get their tuxedos ready for the next Oscar night.  All three will be nominated.  They can ride together in the limousine with the movie's producer, director, and screenwriters.  "Moneyball," thanks to all their efforts, gets it that right.

While all the real footage and locations are spot-on accurate, I took the time to look up Billy Beane's actual playing statistics when I got home.  In the film, his character is depicted as having an ignoble debut for the Mets in a game at Dodger Stadium.  Except, according to Retrosheet, Beane never once appeared as a Met against the Dodgers.  A small ripple in an otherwise smooth ocean of riches.

At the end, we learn that Billy Beane is still with the Oakland Athletics and still trying to be the last guy standing by the end of October.  We learn nothing about what happened to Peter Brand's character, but Dodger fans know that the real-life DePodesta wound up as general manager of their team for a lamentable two years.  His statistical approach didn't work there and wound up with his quick dismissal.  He is now trolling around the New York Met front office, still trying to convince people that baseball is played on a spreadsheet.

It's not.  It's a children's game played by adults.  And, despite what anybody thinks, it can be simultaneously logical and inexplicable.  "Moneyball" shows us both sides of the spectrum and, as a result, just might be the best movie of the year.

Dinner last night:  Barbecue spare ribs and cole slaw from Gelson's.