'Moneyball' loses focus on baseball

"Moneyball" is fundamentally a baseball movie and not a movie about baseball, which is a finite yet distinct difference. The movie, which is based on a 2003 book of the same name, focuses on the Oakland Athletics baseball team in the early 2000s and their general manager, Billy Beane (played by the always magnetic Brad Pitt). Oakland is a small market baseball team with a budget millions of dollars smaller than the teams they play against.

Moneyball follows Beane as he embraces a philosophy of evaluating players that is counter-cultural to the baseball norm. Beane's right-hand man during this transition is 25-year-old Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) whose awkward social skills are eclipsed by his clear understanding of how to determine the value of a baseball player.

The movie is a tense affair, dominated by long pauses and punctuated by moments of humor. Pitt's portrayal of Beane is captivating, as he depicts a man who appears outwardly to be in control but inwardly deals with enormous conflict. Beane is haunted by the ghosts of his own failed baseball career; a career he entered after he was overvalued by traditional scouting methods.

One of the major differences between "Moneyball" and classic baseball movies is the lack of a major climax. The A's, buoyed by Beane's moves and draft picks, end up winning their division on the strength of a MLB record 20-game winning streak. The movie highlights the 20th win, a nail-biter that was won when Scott Hatteberg, a converted catcher that everyone but Beane had given up on, hits the game-winning homer.

But the win was simply a regular season game, and the Athletics are booted from the playoffs in the first round. Beane is offered a huge contract by the Boston Red Sox, a sign that at least some in baseball recognize the revolutionary power of his methods, but he turns it down to remain with Oakland. Boston goes on to win two World Series titles and Beane is still in Oakland, trying to compete in a league that has now embraced his philosophy and in doing so negated his personal effectiveness as a general manager.

Beane's ultimate triumph, changing the game of baseball, is therefore somewhat hollow, because it doesn't result in lasting success for him or his team. Moneyball does all it can to attach significance to what Beane accomplished, but it is restricted by real-life events. In the end, fiction is more interesting than non-fiction, even if the non-fiction is told very well.