Money Ball the movie

Oh, and here's a great site.

boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=baseball.htm

If anybody hereabouts pays for the Premium version, please let us know.

 

I'm all for a vigorous discussion about Moneyball's historical accuracy, but that in no way, shape or form dictates the quality of the film. You judge a film based on what is presented on screen, not how it compares to "real" story.

Moneyball is expertly crafted, expertly acted, thrilling, heart-felt, funny and at times thrilling.

 

Not sure how long ago but NL used to be people there, AL paid.

 

David Maraniss is not a fan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moneyball-the-movie-is-a-big-swing-and-a-miss/2011/10/23/gIQAk59eDM_story.html?hpid=z5

 

And Maraniss goes upper tank with that column.

 

I love David Maraniss. I want to have David Maraniss's gay children. That's how much I love David Maraniss.

But, man, did he whiff horribly on that column.

First of all, he trots out the same tired criticisms of "Moneyball" that have appeared everywhere else for eight years at this point, including here ad nauseum. First of all, the Hudson-Mulder-Zito thing. In the movie, at least, there is a scene where Beane and Brand are talking about the roster for 2002. Brand says, "You are projected to give up this many runs. So you need to score this many runs to win enough games to get in the playoffs." Was there a scene that served as a paean to the Big Three? No. Were they acknowledged? Yes. Was it subtle? Yes. But if you paid attention, you understand that it's a movie about making up value on the margins.

Second of all, nobody wants nine Scott Hattebergs, like Maraniss suggests. That's not the point. The movie, and book, is about Scott Hatteberg vs. a player of equal or similar cost in the marketplace.

Third of all, the, "Statistics ruin sports and baseball is about grace and beauty and statistics make me not want to watch baseball any more and you NERDS!!!111!!!" argument is right out of the Jason Whitlock playbook, and damn I would expect better out of the greatest sports biographer of his generation. Maraniss got absolutely murdered for writing in Clemente that Clemente's value to his team transcended his statistics, because of his - wait for it - grace and beauty. Which I took as a clear shot at sabermetrics when I read it. And he's about to get murdered again on the same Web sites.

"(I)t also glorified statistics over beauty and joy, and that is a trade-off that diminishes life itself."

Excuse my French, but that is fucking absurd. It's about finding hidden beauty in guys like Hatteberg, not about diminishing it. Or "life itself."

 

Is there hidden "beauty" in a Hatteberg? Or is it hidden "value"?

 

Are they mutually exclusive?

 

Of course not.

But they're not the same thing, either.

 

Can be.

Eye of the beholder.

 

You'll have to flesh that out for me.

Are you saying that "value" can be "beautiful"?

Or that "beauty" has a "value?"

Both? Neither?

 

I guess that's what I'm saying. Kind of. I think that our idea of what is beautiful can be subconsciously influenced by objective value. For example, Maraniss himself, in his column, reels off the statistics of the three pitchers on the Oakland A's 2002 staff. If he wanted to maintain the consistency of his premise, Maraniss would have told us about their repetoire of pitches, no? The fluidity of their delivery. The transcendent flight of their pitches. What do statistics have to do with it? A few paragraphs later, he tells us that a focus on statistical value diminishes the game. Diminishes life itself. So, really, what Maraniss is saying is that there is beauty in his statistics. Not those new-fangled ones.

But really what I'm saying is that, because Scott Hatteberg drawing a walk helps his team win baseball games, I find some beauty in that. It's just not as easily discernible as a shortstop going deep into the hole and firing a strike to first. But there is beauty in it. If Hollywood types can fall all over themselves telling me that Gabby Precious is beautiful, I don't feel like I'm stretching it to say that there is beauty in a scrap heap pick-up working a pitcher to get on base.

Which is all pretty far afield from my problems with the Maraniss column. "Moneyball" was an interesting story well-told. And even the most romantic baseball movies understand that beauty is merely a means on the road to a result. Roy Hobbs had a gorgeous swing, and the result was a home run. Shoeless Joe Jackson's glove was the place where triples went to die. But when Ray Kinsella is making his case that Shoeless Joe didn't throw the World Series, he rattles off not the grace of his swing that week, but rather his batting average in the World Series, as well as his efficiency in the field, proof of which was his lack of errors during those games against Cincinnati.

A respected economist once wrote that resources are so limited in this world, that using them efficiently is actually a moral obligation. There is beauty in someone maximizing his resources, yes there is. That doesn't diminish baseball or life. It enhances it. And I beg of you not to extrapolate from this that I am a commerce-over-art kind of guy. I'm not. I'm an indie-rock, indie-movie person for the most part.

Maraniss argues that he has a problem with the entire "moneyball" concept itself. Which is ludicrous. Well, it's not ludicrous if your argument is that, for example, scouts can project player performance better than statistics. That's defensible. But Maraniss isn't arguing that. He's arguing that, even if moneyball is an accurate approach to team-building, that it shouldn't be used because it diminishes the beauty of the game. Or, at the very least, that it shouldn't be reported and written about. I reject an argument the logical conclusion of which is that a small-market GM should sacrifice victories for aesthetics as David Maraniss defines them.