August 22, 2011

What I Was Talking About

Having read the book, I can't figure out how they made a movie out of it. But they did.



You have to figure that a guy like me, who has spent hours making what are called "speed figs" (speed figures) for thoroughbreds just to find an undervalued horse to bet on would easily fall into the system. And I did. An argument can be made that, yeah Oakland has low payrolls and they've had some great teams since Beane took over but where's the championships? - and that would be a good argument. Except the goal was to have a low payroll and still be a winner. Which they did.

Which they did... until recently; because now people are stealing their ideas - which they thought were baseball blasphemy when it got started. So now it's harder. And the thing is, the story is still going on because there really is a Billy Beane (and yes, ladies, he is "movie star" looking) and he really does run the Oakland A's and he still has computer geeks on the payroll. We call them "number guys" in horseracing. Aherrrrm...

6 comments:

sybil law said...

I'd see it!

Verdant Earl said...

Yeah, it didn't seem like movie material to me either when I heard about the adaptation.

But any movie about baseball is alright with me.

Billy Beane did okay with Brad Pitt. It was Paul DePodesta who got short changed with Jonah Hill. Maybe that's whey they didn't use his name in the film. I dunno.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Billy Beane is not movie star looking (at all) & Brad Pitt can't act, but I will probably see this anyway.

RW said...

well see, I've had women tell me the opposite... http://www.nndb.com/people/234/000108907/

And I'm no Brad Pitt fan, but this doesn't seem like a very demanding role. Also there seems to be a lot of automatic negativity about the film and the casting and everything. Not sure what that's all about.

Gary LaPointe said...

I loved the book (and I'm not a sports fan). Even gave it as a few gifts. But I thought this was an Aaron Sorkin film, it didn't feel like it from the preview.