Nice to look at, well put together, but too expensive for regular folk.

I saw Moneyball last week. Great movie. I went with my husband who is a HUGE Bill James fan. I should have made him wear a bib (my husband, not Bill James). I used to buy my husband a stack of Bill James stats books every Christmas until Al Gore came along and invented the Internets. Now it’s all Steinbeck and socks (my husband’s Christmas, not the Internet).

I wanted to see Moneyball because I’m a big Michael Lewis fan. He can make the driest of subjects interesting. Add Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay and I am in writer geek heaven. Much fuss was made about Brad Pitt playing the role of Billy Beane because of the eye candy factor. Brad Pitt does nothing for me. He always looks unshowered to me. My Brad Pitt fantasy involves bringing him home and locking him in the bathroom while I stand outside the door yelling things like, “Use soap!” and “Don’t forget to wash your hair!”

But I digress.

Moneyball is the story of Oakland A’s general manager who was trying to compete against big money teams like the New York Yankees on a shoestring budget. After a frustrating post season in which he lost his key players, he put together a team of underestimated and undervalued players, based on statistical analysis, rather than the soft skills and gut feelings that had been the mainstays of building a MLB team roster for decades.

The characters are well-rounded and sympathetic. Beane’s relationship with his teen daughter is endearing, how much is fiction, I don’t know, but it adds an interesting depth to Beane’s character. The story moves quickly and the plot is not predictable. I definitely recommend seeing it.