moneyball Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Joe Posnanski's Profile Of Bill James Will Get You Pumped For <em>Moneyball</em>
It's like Sabermetric Christmas: "Yes, he was driven nuts early and often, and he raged back with a sort of funny, blunt and often searing writing that appealed to an audience nobody had realized existed. Bill James was not the first person to search for knowledge in baseball, not even close, but un...

Deadspin Classic: The Forgotten Man Of <em>Moneyball</em>
Moneyball the movie is in theaters on Friday. Eric Walker doesn't appear in the film, and he's mentioned only briefly in Michael Lewis's book, but he was central to the statistical revolution that Moneyball chronicles—the "pebble that started the avalanche," in his words. Two years ago, he told us h...

Levante 1, Real Madrid 0: How Did The Team That's "Ugly, Poor, And Bad At Football" Beat La Liga's Rich Pretty Boy?
A year ago, Levante earned a draw against Real Madrid, the best, wealthiest, handomest team in all of La Liga. It was a big moment for the Levante Granotes (that means frogs): Striker Rafa Jordá likened the 0-0 decision to "chewing the face off your girlfriend." (We'll blame shaky translation for th...

Your Field Guide To The Assorted Kerfuffles Over <em>Moneyball</em>, The Movie
Moneyball, the long-delayed film adaptation of Michael Lewis's book about Paul DePodesta's TI-89 and Jeremy Brown's love handles, hits theaters next week. It's a big thing for baseball folks, because Moneyball helped bring a statistically inclined subculture to the mainstream. You'll notice this in ...

A Sneak Peek At The <em>Moneyball</em> Movie
Entertainment Tonight scored a preview of the Moneyball movie about Billy Beane and the A's that nobody thought would ever get made. It's the most teasing of teasers, with Brad Pitt (Billy Beane) slurring his lines, Jonah Hill (a character based on Paul DePodesta, who refused to let his likeness be...

Moneyball Comes To England
Liverpool fans are worried that their new American owners will try to win on the cheap, replete with columnists fulminating about how statistics can't measure "temperament, courage, dedication." Someone needs to start up a Fire David Pleat blog. [Guardian, h/t Joey]...

Here's A Picture Of Jonah Hill As Paul De Podesta On The Set Of <em>Moneyball</em>
The Michael-Lewis-book-turned-definition-of-production-problems finally started shooting. See for yourself how the baffling casting choice will look on the silver screen. It's really a shame Sam Kinison wasn't available to play the ghost of Connie Mack. [The appropriately named Accidental Sexiness,...

<em>Moneyball</em> The Movie Clearly Not Selling Jeans Here, Either
Rob Neyer reports that the revived Moneyball movie has dropped Demetri Martin from the role of assistant GM Paul DePodesta and instead gone with Jonah Hill. Paul DePodesta just threw a chair at the wall. [SweetSpot]...

<em>Moneyball</em>'s Back On
Bennett Miller, the guy who did the Truman Capote movie that didn't subject us to Peter Bogdanovich's acting, will direct. He replaces Steven Soderbergh, who was traded to the White Sox for three prospects and a reliever. [Variety, via NYMag]...

Bissinger Continues His <em>Moneyball</em> Trolling
Buzz Bissinger, shit-pissing author of Three Nights as Tony La Russa's Sock Puppet, is back on his battered old Moneyball hobbyhorse, firing off angry fallacies left and right. [TNR, of all places]...

The Forgotten Man Of <em>Moneyball</em>, Part 1
He calls himself "the pebble that started the avalanche," the man who taught baseball analysis to Billy Beane. Gandhi, someone wrote, sparking MLK's revolution. Today, Moneyball remains a hotly debated phenomenon. Eric Walker is a footnote. Here's the footnote's story....

Famous Actor Desperate To Portray Nerdy GM
Brad Pitt says that Moneyball: The Movie is still very much alive and he would very much like to play Billy Beane. So world-famous actors with beautiful movie star wives dream about being nerdy baseball executives? [MTV]...

Buzz Bissinger's <em>3 Nights In August</em> To Become 2 Hours Wasted At Your Local Multiplex
That other baseball movie is flailing about, but the adaptation of 3 Nights In August, Bissinger's Moneyball diss track and paean to Tony La Russa and the manly virtues of lineup construction, is moving along nicely. The nerds can't win....

Now It's Aaron Sorkin's Turn To Fail At Writing A <em>Moneyball</em> Script
Columbia has enlisted Sorkin, the sanctimonious West Wing creator last seen making Ed Asner say "Macau" over and over, to write a draft of the star-crossed Moneyball script. Such waste. Such inefficiency. Somebody could write a bestselling book about this....

Soderbergh's <i>Moneyball</i> Script Too Real To Get Made
The Sony Pictures executive who pulled the plug on Moneyball says that Steven Soderbergh changed the original script because he didn't want anything in the movie that didn't actually happen. So Billy Beane isn't a sweaty, foul-mouthed, Hooters waitress slayer?...

Billy Beane Is A Golden God: Excerpts From The Scrapped Moneyball Script
It looks like Moneyball might not be coming to the big screen anytime soon because director Steven Soderbergh tinkered with the script and everyone realized that a movie version of the book made about as much sense as Joe Morgan....

<em>Moneyball</em>'s Deep-Sixed
Break out the baseball puns! Columbia has dropped Steven Soderbergh's Moneyball adaptation like an overvalued, arbitration-eligible pitcher after a career year. Why, it's as if producers made a running, 20-foot backhand flip to cut down the movie at the plate....

<em>Moneyball</em>’s Deep: How Baseball Prospectus Is Like The Oakland A’s
Under Billy Beane, the Oakland A's won by scraping together undervalued assets. Since the rest of baseball has started valuing assets properly, the A's are having a harder time. The same thing is happening to baseball's leading propeller-heads....

David Ortiz Is Still Worth More Than General Motors
David Ortiz's putrid 2009 numbers — .185, 1 HR, 18 RBI, 48 strikeouts — don't qualify for a government bailout, as his statistics translate to an approximate worth on the free agent market of negative $5.2 million. At least he's more valuable than Delmon Young. [Fangraphs, via Simon on Sports]...