Influence - Moneyball

When it comes to movies, I’m a sucker for the Marvel formula: some good action scenes with witty dialogue and almost no depth. I don’t watch movies to change my life; I just want to be entertained for a couple hours.

With this as a backdrop, Moneyball is a movie I’m perfectly set up to hate. It doesn’t have any of those Marvel-esque elements. There’s not much witty commentary, certainly no action scenes, and the story is even a bit slow. (If you haven't seen it or just don't remember it well, IMDB has a solid synopsis here)

But I’ve watched the movie at least four times. Every time I watch it, I like it more. This post is a reflection of why I love the movie so much.

The first thing is the plot line. Since I’ve begun engineering, I’ve become more and more interested in how quantitative methods can be used in our everyday lives. It’s what eventually led me to Operations Research. Moneyball helped introduce this idea idea to me through its discussion of players being “undervalued,” and an understanding that there’s a best team they can construct with their money. For someone who never really understood the strategy behind baseball (despite my love of Astros games), seeing it broken down into simple, measurable metrics made it that much more comprehensible.

“Undervalued” sums up the next reason I loved the movie: it’s an underdog story! The A’s are a small market team losing their best player. Brad Pitt’s character (Billy) isn’t some hot shot GM with a fancy house and a nice car (something emphasized both by the juxtapositions with Fenway and his ex-wife’s home). This underdog story is just piled onto with Jonah Hill’s character Peter, an economist with no experience swiping a bat or throwing a ball. The A’s are underdogs, just like all the characters.

But the biggest factor I found myself drawn to was the candidness of the movie. Unlike other movies, Moneyball feels candid. It takes on the understated-ness of everyday life, where, even when people accomplish big things that shake up entire industries, it happens quietly. And in that sort of monotonous honesty, there’s a big human element to the movie. Whether it’s the way Billy ends up getting to know his players, or his relationship with his daughter, or the constant reminder of his past as a draft bust, the movie shows Billy grow as a character. By the end of the movie, I feel like I know him personally.

Moneyball became my favorite movie because I could relate to it. It’s got an honest and authentic feel that underpins the entire movie. At the end of the day, the realism of being based on a true story lends to its ability to inspire me to dream of what’s possible.