Moneyball

I really can't write about Moneyball without looking at it from two angles. I will look at it as just a movie, then compare the movie to the book.

The movie, on its own, was quite good. I was not sure how they would make a compelling movie about a book like that. The dialog was definitely improved for more laughs and just generally better conversation overall in the movie. The characters were very likable, and there was quite a bit of emotion in the movie, which was definitely not that true for the book. The baseball action was quite enjoyable even though it was a little bit prolonged. I was not really sure how they would make the book into a movie, but they did a pretty decent job. I would recommend the movie to anyone, baseball fan or not. I was weirded out by Phillip Seymour-Hoffman playing Art Howe, but I actually thought that Art Howe was older than he actually is. He it only 64 now, I wouldn't have been surprised if he was 65 back then. He just looked that old I guess.

The movie really didn't go into the advanced statistics in the book, pretty much focused on walks. Much of the more in depth things the book goes into like the history of Sabermetrics, the development of the stats, Chad Bradford's life growing up, The draft that year, among other things. I thought the draft was a big point in the book, but it was literally not even mentioned in the movie. I would have loved to hear Brad Pitt say "Span fucked us!" referring to Denard Span who is currently on the Minnesota Twins, just for the simple fact that I like Denard Span and I think it would be a cool name drop. Billy Beane was not as likable a character in the book and I suppose real life as he is in the movie. I think they really needed to make him likable to drive the movie though.

I guess I just wanted this movie to do more preaching of advanced statistics, which would expose them to a new audience. I am not saying everyone would take them as gospel, but more people would have an idea where that half of the fans is coming from. I still think it was an interesting book, that was turned into an interesting movie that is worth seeing.