I have read Michael Lewis’ book of the same name so I’m sort of familiar with the essence of the movie, which added more characters and personality to the story main characters and made it even more interesting.

For all baseball lovers, this is a must-watch. Baseball traditionally has been a game played by big-ego, high-earning players reinforced by all the supporting characters (coaches, recruiter, and fans). The small team like Oakland Aces weren’t going to cut it with its limited budget. To win the game, it needs a new business model to win. This called for a new math wizard who crank out equations and statistics and came up with a new way to recruit cheap players who can make hits, instead of home runs or being good defensively. This broke all the traditional models known for the last 100 years, and ended up allowing Oakland Aces to win 20 consecutive games, a record. Unfortunately, at the end, Billy Beane could have gotten a fat $12M paycheck to go to Boston Red Sox. Instead, he stayed put in Oakland without a championship ring. Is it for the love of the place, dogmatic about his method? Or simply winning is not his ultimate goal – being a good underdog is as he had fallen from being a superstar right out of high school without going to Stanford as he often regretted.

Brad Pitt, acting as Billy Beane, was good and loveable in this movie, though not as believable. Like the movie anyway.