Can't take the art out of baseball
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As baseball's typically dramatic postseason rattles toward a midpoint, many of its narrative arcs intersect the conversation generated by the new Brad Pitt movie "Moneyball," which I actually got around to seeing this week.
The matinee had free popcorn, for which I'd probably see "Big Momma's House IV."
Based on the Michael Lewis book, "Moneyball" is approximately the story of how Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Pitt) patched up his roster well enough by torturing data to win 103 games in 2002 despite the departure of slugging first baseman Jason "I'm sorry for doing steroids without saying I did" Giambi, The film is thriving as both art and enterprise (it's already made $50 million) if not so much as baseball history.
Pitt, interviewed recently on NPR, said he thought the filmmakers did an outstanding job of letting the most interesting aspects of the characters drive the story rather than trying to hang it on the dreary issue that birthed it, the role of sophisticated metrics in not only the way teams are built, but also in the way the game is played.
As another insane free agency period looms and a number of franchises face critical personnel decisions that run all the way to the general manager's office (thank God the Pirates are set in that regard), the issues laid bare by the characters in "Moneyball" are roiling the philosophical passions of baseball's serious students.
Still, for me, the question I can't get around is, "What in the name of Blue Moon Odom is Philip Seymour Hoffman doing in this film?"
Hoffman plays Art Howe, a Pittsburgh native who was then the manager of the A's. Howe has made it plain he doesn't appreciate the way he's depicted, that being as a somewhat vain obstructionist to Beane's burgeoning genius.
Howe has a gripe, I might agree, but not to the point of yelping about "character assassination." The manager in this film could have been any manager, as Hoffman reacts just about the way any manager would have reacted given Beane's prescription for suddenly unorthodox methodology.
For that you don't need Philip Seymour Hoffman, who matched acting chops with no less than Meryl Streep in "Doubt," their indelible scenes being little short of one-on-one cinematic history. Hoffman's multilayered delivery of Truman Capote, a daunting, viscously complex role within the professional range of only the craft's truly expert, brought him the best actor Oscar in 2005.
Is this the caliber of actor necessary to insist to Billy Beane that Carlos Pena play first base instead of Scott Hatteberg?
First Published October 13, 2011 12:00 am
