Moneyball (film)

Moneyball is a 2011 American biographical sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The film is based on Michael Lewiss 2003 nonfiction book of the same name, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball teams 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beanes attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane Brad Pitt and assistant GM Peter Brand Jonah Hill, faced with the franchises limited budget for players, build a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach towards scouting and analyzing players. They acquire submarine pitcher Chad Bradford Casey Bond and former catcher Scott Hatteberg Chris Pratt, and winconsecutive games, an American League record. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Lewiss book in 2004. The film was featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 23, 2011 to a boxoffice success and positive reviews. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Actor for Pitt, Best Supporting Actor for Hill, and Best Picture.

Oakland team scouts are first dismissive and then hostile towards Brands nontraditional sabermetric approach to scouting players. Most notably, Grady Fuson Ken Medlock takes to the radio airwaves after being fired by Beane and doubts the teams future. Rather than relying on the scouts experience and intuition, Brand selects players based almost exclusively on their onbase percentage OBP. Despite vehement objections from the scouts, Beane signs the players Brand suggests, such as unorthodox submarine pitcher Chad Bradford Casey Bond, pasthisprime outfielder David Justice Stephen Bishop and injured Scott Hatteberg Chris Pratt. Beane finds that he also faces opposition from Art Howe Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Athletics manager. With tensions already high between them because of a contract dispute, Howe disregards Beanes and Brands strategy and plays a lineup he prefers. Beane eventually trades away the lone traditional first baseman, Carlos Pea, to force Howe to use Hatteberg at that position.Early in the season, the Athletics fare poorly, leading critics to dismiss the new method as a failure. Beane convinces the owner to stay the course and the teams record improves. The Athletics winconsecutive games, tying for the longest winning streak in American League history. Beanes young daughter implores him to go to the As subsequent game against the Kansas City Royals, where Oakland is already leading 110 after the third inning and appears set to advance their winning streak to a recordbreaking 20. Like many baseball players, Beane is superstitious and avoids games in progress, but upon hearing how well the game is going on the radio, he decides to go. Beane arrives in the fourth inning, only to watch the team go to pieces and eventually allow the Royals to even the score at 11. Finally, the As do win, on a walkoff home run by Hatteberg. Yet the As again lose in the postseason, this time to the Minnesota Twins. Beane is disappointed, believing nothing short of a cham

Source: Wikipedia