Tuesday evening I had an awesome opportunity to go to an advance screening of the new movie Moneyball.  I got the opportunity from Bliss Connect Community and was very excited!  I don’t usually get to see movies in the theater very often.  And this was extra special because the movie isn’t even being released until September 23rd.  I felt like a celebrity

Starring Brad Pitt, Moneyball is the story of the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together the team on a budget by employing radical strategies and statistics that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.  It stars Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman, both of whom I am big fans of. 

In my opinion, though, the scene stealer of this movie was Jonah Hill.  He was fantastic – totally lovable. 

I usually really enjoy sports movies and this movie was no exception.  Even though I’m not the biggest baseball fan, the grit and heart behind these types of movies gets me every time.  And although this is a baseball movie, even viewers with no baseball knowledge can enjoy it.

Basically, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) was asked, as general manager for the Oakland A’s, to put together a competitive, successful team with a budget that was a fraction of the other teams in the league.  Because of the salary constraints placed on him by the team’s owners, he was unable to keep the big-name players that were known as the best in the league.  They were all leaving the A’s, or not looking at them, in order to get a bigger paycheck on another team (hello Yankees and Red Sox).  With the help of Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a statistical whiz kid with a Yale degree in economics, Billy puts together a team of previously ignored players whose playing statistics showed they were undervalued as players.  Beane’s team of “misfits” brings anger and scorn from the old school scouts and baseball industry as he tries to revolutionize baseball and leave his stamp on the over century-old institution.

Perhaps one of the things that makes this movie so interesting and meaningful is the fact that Beane himself is an ex-player with his own tragic tragic past.  His history, as well as his present life as a single man sharing custody of his 12-year-old daughter with his ex, add depth to the character and the movie.  You can’t help but be sucked in.

This is a story of a man doing the best he can with what he has.  Thinking outside the box, going against the grain, fighting for what he believes in.  It will leave you inspired to be a change agent in your own life.  And maybe inspired to watch a baseball game or two