"Moneyball" set to be released Sept. 23, 2011

Moneyball will hit theaters on 9/23/11.

One of the all-time great non-fiction sports books (well, at least one of the all-time greats in my opinions), Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, is set to hit theaters as a movie on September 23, 2011.

The movie, which is directed by Bennett Miller and is based off of the 2003 New York Times  bestseller, will be starring a couple of big name actors: Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.

The book/movie chronicles the operations of the Oakland Athletics front office under general manager Billy Beane, who is played by Pitt.

Under Beane and Beane's right hand man, Harvard graduate Peter Brand (who is played by Hill, and is an alias for the actual right hand man of Beane, Paul DePodesta), the Oakland A's personnel decisions are managed by what is known as Sabermetrics.

Sabermetrics is the practice of evaluating the game of baseball and the ability of baseball players by using mathematic calculations and analysis.

As I said before, the book is phenomenal. It is absolutely a must read for any sports fan that enjoys baseball.

But, I am not so sure how the movie will turn out.

The book is not really based on a plot and there is not one set story line to which the book adheres. Moneyball, the book, ultimately shows how the A's turned into a successful baseball team over time, thanks to Beane and DePodesta stressing the use of mathematical formulas to determine the value of players.

My guess: Moneyball the movie won't garner nearly as much excitement and prestige as did the widely popular movie The Blind Side, which was also based on Michael Lewis' book by the same name.

One part of the movie that I am definitely looking forward to, however, is seeing how well Pitt portrays Beane.

Pitt of course is not normally casted in sports movies, so I am also intrigued to see how well he fills the role of a sports figure.

Brad Pitt will play the role of Oakland A's 
GM Billy Beane. It should be interesting to see
 how well he fills the role of the "fire ball".

But even more than that, throughout the book Moneyball, Beane is presented as a complete fire ball who does not take failure well. It will be interesting to see how well Pitt fills the role of a hot-headed baseball general manger.

Just to give you an idea of how angry Beane becomes sometimes, consider this excerpt from page 9 of the book. In the excerpt, Lewis is presenting a story from Beane's early playing days (Beane was the 23rd overall pick in the 1980 MLB draft, but never developed into the star he was supposed to become).

"One time after [Beane] struck out, he whacked his aluminum bat against a wall with such violence that he bent it at a right angle. The next time he came to the plate he was still so furious with himself that he insisted on hitting with the crooked bat" (Lewis 9).

Here is the IMDb page of the movie for those of you who want to learn more about the cast.

I will definitely post a review when I have a chance to see the movie in September.