The Rewatchables - ‘Moneyball’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: August 7, 2017

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan to induct ‘Moneyball’ into the Sports Movie Hall of Fame. They cover the state of Brad Pitt’s career (0:45), the past 20 years of sports movies (2:34), the making of ‘Moneyball’ (9:25), their favorite moments from the film (14:20), and the future of sports movies (51:54). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Okay, this is a podcast. Chris Ryan and I did a while ago and we were putting it in the rewatchables feed. We're consolidating. So this was Moneyball, which I guess would not make the rewatchables Hall of Fame. May not even make honorable mention,

but I'll tell you what it did make, the sports movie Hall of Fame. Here's the conversation Chris Ryan and I had about Moneyball with Brad Pitt. Moneyball intrigues both of us because I don't think people realize this is probably the best sports movie, not just of the decade, but of this century. Yeah. Of the 21st century, the best sports movie is Moneyball. And I've never heard anyone say that.

So me and Andy were just talking about, or sorry, me and Sean were just talking about this on the watch a couple of days ago where we were talking about rewatchability. and how now, because there's so much stuff to do, you have so much live sports, you have so much streaming television that the idea of basically, oh, this movie's on TNT or HBO, I'm just gonna, it's got my attention.

I'm just gonna watch it no matter how many times it's on HBO and TNNNNX or whatever. That doesn't really happen anymore because any time you're in front of a screen, you have like a list of things you gotta get through. Yeah. But Moneyball is probably the most recent rewatchable movie

that I've come across, where it's just like, rewatchable sports? or rewatchable anything? Flat out. Okay. Yeah, because it's just so, it's got so many different pockets

of entertainment in it and it reveals itself over time. But as far as sports movies goes, as far as in a lot of ways, it's an anti-sports movie. It's a really traditional sports movie and it's just so entertaining. I think Creed has a chance to get there.

It's really tough to tell within a year of when a movie comes out. But I think five years from now, I think Creed will be there for me. But the thing for me with Creed, even though Creed's got a bunch of really rousing parts, Creed is ultimately like Friday Night Lights

for me, where it's like, I know what I'm going to get, like, what kind of mood it's going to put me in, it's going to be dark, I'm going to have to think about, you know, Rocky being sick and everything. Yeah. With Moneyball, it's just pure entertainment. And it's kind of, if you love acting and all like the dorcas stuff that we like, it's perfect. It's great. So the sports movies, if you go just through since 1974, definitely had different phases, right?

So you had, I would call the old school classics, which started with Longest Yard Rollerball, in 1974 and then peaked with Rocky and Slapshot in 76. And then they just kept replicating the Rocky plot pretty much for every sport and every kind of situation. But it's like the underdog makes good became the theme over and over again. And from that, you then had a bunch of different one-off movies that were really fun, like North Dallas 40, you know, Jericho Mile, American Flyers. But it's all kind of in the same genre.

And then it evolved and they ran out of ways to make that same movie. And it wasn't until 96 where like the modern sports movie started. And now you see like just so many niche movies. Nietz niche? Nitch. Yeah. Why do I say niche? Some people say niche.

I think some people do. Yeah. You and I are probably the two worst people to be polling each other about how to pronounce things. Right. So it's true. We're both terrible pronouncers. So there was this era that started 96 where it was like, let's go a level beyond. Just like, this isn't just a baseball movie.

this is for love of the game. It's about Kevin Costner. It's his last chance. Should he retire? And it was just taken and it kept going and kept going. And then in these last like nine, 10 years, it got really super focused. And that led to Moneyball. Yeah. But you saw like Damned United, which both of us like, that's a sports movie that they, I just don't even think they make in 1979. No. And it's, the funny thing with Dan United is that the book itself that it's based on is totally way different. This version of it is much more like they cut between the bad parts of Brian Kloff's career and the good parts of his career. But for the most part, I think that one thing that's been interesting, Daniel Knight is actually

kind of part of this is that, you know, we had so many decades of basically bad news bears longest yard style underdog achievement stories. Yes. But now we're starting to see, I think, over the last couple of years, you get here and there, we're so curious about how sports actually work that you're starting to get these money ball style movies that are like, we're going to delve into like this unseen part of sports, whether it's draft day, money ball, you know, in some ways, Jerry McGuire was the start of that with them being a sports agent. But stuff like that is, I think, where we're going to keep

seeing movies be made. And I was writing, I was writing for ESPN.com and page two at the time, and during the course of the last decade, I thought sports movies were dying because the Disney kind of type of sports movie had just taken over. And it was just to remember the Titans and and Coach Carter and Gridiron Gang and Glory Road and rebound. All these movies were, it was just they were making the same movie over and over again a bit invincible. Right. It was a college or high school team that nobody believed in or had a tragedy attached to it.

They had a movie star who plays the coach who's doubted it first and then brings them all together. And they'd spend most of the movies budget on the one guy. Yeah. And they would go and there'd be a cute girl in there, hard balls and on it. But it was just over and over again the same movie. And then there was this really interesting kind of flip to it that started at the end of last decade.

But all of a sudden you have movies like win-win. You had Warrior, you'd Moneyball. You would rush, which I think it was excellent. I wrote a whole piece about it three years ago. They were just trying to be a little different. And a lot of times it didn't work. Like trouble with the curve is terrible. Goon, I liked, but has not really aged that well.

Southpaw. They made a lot of box of movies. Yeah. And then there was like that run of 42 and race where it was like kind of the Disney on steroids type of where we're taking this very important historical thing and blowing it out. Million dollar money for a song. Million dollar. Yeah.

Million dollar. But Moneyball, I remember hearing they were making this and going, how are they going to do that? That sounds like a terrible idea. And tell the history of what happened. Yeah. So it's actually got a fascinating Genesis. So it was originally written, there was a version of a screenplay. play and then they brought in Steve Zalien, who has done a bunch of different stuff, but

most recently did the night of on HBO. So Zalian Root's script and David Frankl, who I think directed wedding crashers and has done a bunch of other stuff since then in that vein, but he was going to direct, uh, direct it. Stuff happened. They wanted to bring in Soderberg. And this is like Soderberg, right as he's, um, coming out of an incredibly fertile and popular period, but he's sort of starting to get weirder again. And Stephen Soderberg does that where he'll have like very populist moments. And then he'll do, you know, Oceans 11 in traffic and Aaron Brockovich, and then he'll kind of go off and make some weird stuff. But this was a lot of, Soderberg, with a lot of juice at this point.

Yeah, but, and Pitt was attached. So you can pretty much get it made. They get pretty close to the production of this movie and the whole thing with this. And the script is out there on the internet. I think it kind of goes in and out of being available. But Soderberg was like, I want to make this with the real David Justice and the real Scott Hatterberg. It was going to be a combination of like interviews with people, real life people playing.

themselves and he basically told Sony, I'm going to make this movie in the editing room. It's just going to be a function of what happens. And for whatever. Like a documentary across with the movie. Exactly. And then they get up to pretty much the precipice of production. And whether it was the cost for spiraling out of control or they were just eventually like we can't make it.

I think there was also some issues with actual Major League Baseball's actual participation with it. And it was a Sony movie. And I just don't think Sony liked it. I don't think they wanted to make. So in any case, he's gone. Mutual or Soderberg leaves or whatever. And that actually leads to Soderberg, I think soon after that,

being like, you know what, I'm make Magic Mike and then I'm done. Well, you left that a crucial part. I think they had spent $10 million already. I'm sure they had. So they had this point where it was like the $10 million was a sunk cost to we make the movie. And they basically decided, nah, we're not going to do it. But Pitt. He loved the movie.

He's fired up, did not want to let it go. And the irony of that is this is the best Brad Pitt movie. And it's, it's, Brad Pitt has great taste. If you look at the movies that Brad Pitt produces, beyond the movies he's even in that he produces, like Brad Pitt makes good movies. He does. And he had a feeling about this. Now, originally it was supposed to be Pitt and Dimitri Martin. And DeMarton was going to play the Paul de de-podestic character.

And eventually, that's weird. It is weird. That's a weird. Everything about the Soderberg movie is fascinating, but I, but weird. So they wind up, apparently, uh, Catherine Keener introduces Bennett Miller to Brad Pitt. Yeah, they get along. They're like, let's do this. they get Sorkan in to do a rewrite of the screenplay.

And then you have Sorkin and Zalian just passing scripts back and forth, which are two of the best writers we've had the last 20 years. You can tell that. But it still remains, you still have the question of how are you going to make a movie out of a book that is a nonlinear conversation about advanced statistics in baseball where the sort of most dramatic moment is a trade deadline phone call. Yeah. And there are no real characters.

Yeah. And on the other hand, the reason I think it's. works really well and it's so rewatchable is it's really a movie about innovation and going against the grain and wondering why we have to do it the way everyone else does it let's try something different let's take a chance so it actually for me this movie really rides the the line between um it's like it's the rounders line where it's like it's just expert enough so that you're like what is happening yeah yeah yeah so cool but on the other hand they do do some explanations here and there like there are the montage with the voiceover or like Jonah Hill will give a very like we don't want to

buy like we can't buy like these great players but we can buy runs. Okay people who run ball clubs that they think in terms of buying players your goal shouldn't be to buy players your goal should be to buy wins and in order to buy wins you need to buy runs. He'll explain advanced statistics to the layman very very well and I know obviously we're going to get into this a lot of people have some issues with the way certain things are represented in this movie. But the farther we get away from the 2002 Oakland A's season, which is like, who cares? It's just a great movie. Right.

And it feels like you don't realize how long 15 years was until they, in the beginning of the movie, they're showing the 2001 Yankees A's series. Yeah, with Giuliani out there. Yeah, Giuliani's out there back where people like Giuliani. Jeremy Gianbi's just swollen and that is all time. Wow, that guy's maybe not doing this naturally. And that's the Cheater Toss series. Isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. And that led to the 9-11 series, all that stuff. So they opened with that series, that 2001 series between the Yankees and the A's. And the payroll differential, which was like $39 million against $114 million. So if you ever want to see what a movie star does, that first time you see Brad Pitt, he is sitting in an empty Oakland Coliseum, and he's like sitting in the stands and he's switching a transistor radio on and off because he knows what's going to happen. He knows the Yankees are going to win. And so every five seconds or so he'll switch it on.

And he is just sitting in a dark baseball stadium by himself. And you're like, I don't want to watch anything else in the whole world. That is like that unexplainable magnetism that certain movie stars have where you're just like watching a guy flip a radio on it off is somehow mesmerizing. Like that's the difference between someone like him and the replacement level actor. Yeah, like I think Clooney could have been a money bomb and made it work. Maybe, but there's something, the way that they imagine being as this kind of ex-joc, which I know he was, but really playing off his like, I like to lift weights and spit and do stuff like that.

He nails it. He nails the ex-athlet, like, gait and the feel for that character is so right. I agree. And, you know, I think Brad Pitt has made some weird choices, but he likes to do different things and dance. around but he's smart enough to realize that every once in a while he just has to be a movie star in a movie. Yes. You did that at Ocean's 11. He's like, I'm just going to be a movie star in this movie.

And yeah, it's the same quality Newman and Redford had way back when. Mr. and Mrs. Smith he does that and in Ocean's movies he does that. I think in some ways he does that in World War Z because he's just like, I'm going to be in every scene and this is a cool action movie. But Moneyball is just the one where you know, I think that he

sometimes is a little he's hurt sometimes because he's so good at playing dumb. Like when he's Floyd in true romance, you're like, this is, this is the best, man. This is exactly what you are. He's playing himself. Yeah. But when, and so, but Billy Bean in this movie is struggling to, he knows that what Peter Brand, who is the Paul Dio Podesta character that Jonah Hill plays, he knows what he's telling him is right. And he knows that he wants to get rid of these old fossils who are telling him, like, oh, this guy is like Fabio or whatever. Yeah. But he's not quite there in terms of like the

intellectual backing for it. And he plays him really well of like this instinctive, it's all gut for him. And it's really, really, really infused in that performance. I can't speak highly enough about it. The movie has a lot of moments that don't happen enough in movies anymore. It was interesting reading about it and researching, you know, some of the decisions they made and how Pitt was like really motivated to make a movie that feels like it would have been a character movie from the 70s. Yeah. Yeah. Because it feels that way. Because even the scene when he meets Jonah Hill, he's trying to make a trade with the Indians. The baseball scenes in this movie are ridiculous.

Yes. They just get a guy on the phone, hey, I'll give you, I want Rinconi. Call me back. Yeah. You know, I really don't think trade it works. It's unclear about why he flies to Cleveland to talk about Rincon. And Mark Shapiro's got like five guys in his office. He's like, now I'm not going to trade him to you.

It's like, well, why did I fly Cleveland then? We couldn't have talked about this? But he's watching the room and he's watching these guys kind of lean on Jonah Hill and he's studying him, and then he goes in the office and looks for him and they go to the parking lot. what happened in there. It's all great. And the mystique of Jonah Hill as a serious actor from 2011 gets lost now because he's done

that other times. But in this movie, it's like the kid from Superbad is now in a drama, like battling with Brad Pitt. And it was a cool wrinkle in 2011. It's interesting that Deep Pedesta took his name off the movie. Yeah, I don't know enough about that guy. I guess he was just private or is he just disagreed with the characterization of it. I think he just thought he was maybe misrepresented because he went on to run the

Dodgers and now he's running the Cleveland Browns. Yeah. One of the things that I think is important for this movie is that when it comes to just office dialogue, people in offices, people walking from an office to another people meeting to have a secret meeting about an office thing, there's nobody better than Sorkin. So Sorkin can turn that into Shakespeare. But you can often see, like you saw this on the newsroom a little bit where people are basically like, I get the dialogue, but I'm basically just like miming it.

You know what I mean? And that's where when you have Pitt, and especially the scenes that it's Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman, they're amazing. They're bonkers. Like, Philip Seymour Hoffman has no business playing Art Howe. There's just no reason for it. You know what I mean?

Like you could have had anybody, you could have J.K. Simmons. You can have so many different people just come in and play Art Howe a week's work, right? But Philip Seymour Hoffman was friends with Bennett Miller. So he's like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. I don't know if Philip Seymour Hoffman liked baseball, but those scenes between the two of them where he's like, like, you know, I don't care about righty-lefty matchups. And Philip Seymour's Hoffman's like, yeah, I do.

It's pretty amazing. These scenes are so incredible. But when you have actors who are so good at that, those scenes just sing in a way they wouldn't in a normal movie. Did you read that Art Howe was actually pissed about the Philip Seymour Hoffman and just pissed about the movie in general? No, because he made him look like a door. Yeah, I think there was a bunch of things that he didn't like.

One of them was, like when they traded Mike Magna, or they sent down Mike Magnate, whatever his name was 10 days for. I was like, I did that. Yeah. I was like, we're getting rid of all these guys. You have to pitch Chad Bradford in the eighth. Right. But what I thought was interesting was, I think it partly pissed him off that Hoffman's just

like this fat, fat actor playing him. It's probably like, I played baseball for 15 years. I don't look like that. I'm sure Arthau's a great guy. But if, I mean, Phillips Seymour Hoffman, why wouldn't you want Phillips Seymour Hoffman to play? Because he's a baseball player. Yeah.

Can the guy look like a baseball player? So here's my thing with this movie. We can get into this now. Wait, hold on. I got one more Philips Seamor off the thing. if you watch carefully, if you watch it enough times, he's basically playing the guy like Scotty J and Boogie Nights. This is what happens is Scotty J's? He grows up to little. Scotty J. He's got the same kind of just perplexed facial expressions and very deliberate.

But then there's like a 20% hint of the guy from talent to Mr. Ripley. Tommy. How's the peeping? Like that sarcastic guy, that guy, with a dose of Scottie J. It's a combo of those too. I miss him so much. He was so great. I think Philip Seymour Hoffman was just like, I like this script. I like the director. And I'm just creating this character.

I'm not researching art how at all. This is just my idea of what a baseball manager would act and look like. And he just went with it. But that's the, see, I know that when this movie came out in 2011, a lot of people had problems with its accuracy. You know, not only it's accuracy to the book, but the accuracy in terms of how it represented that season. And then whether or not it was basically telling like a much.

different story than the truth. And I totally understand that. But here we are in 2016, right? A lot of stuff's happened in the last 15 years. Do you really care what happened on the 2002 Oakland is? Like, is that the important part? Are you, were you ever, if Moneyball had never come out to, like, taint your memory of that team, would Mark Mulder's accomplishments be that much more dimmed this year than they were? Now we have this great movie. And then if you like the A's, you know what Barry Zito did back then or whatever, right? But I don't think people are realize that every movie that's based on something takes like dramatic, crazy liberties on whatever the facts actually worse. But in sports, it's like, we know what the facts were. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. Totally. And I think it's risky. I mean, you often see with these movies that come out, you know, like really soon after or even during historical moments, whether it's Zero Dark 30 or W, that Oliver Stone movie. And whenever people, Snowden. Yeah. All that stuff. Like people try to make movies right on the back of history, I think often the audiences, expectations and familiarity with the story is such that they are not willing to forgive mistakes. And nobody is going to be more unforgiving than a baseball fan. And especially baseball fans that are into advanced metrics. Right. And also like the Carlos Pena thing is kind of a red herring a little bit. They made it seem like this guy's the rookie year. He's been amazing. Oh, he's going to take such a gamble and trade him

to get Hatterberg. Meanwhile, like in real life, they sent him down because he was in like 190. Yes. That's a tough one. I wish they had finagle that. They made Chad Bradford seem like this amazing guy.

And actually, like, the guys who did well on that team, I don't think were people that were part of the moneyball strategy. I mean, Eric Chavez is in it, right? And he gets kind of like... Germaine Die had a big season. He was there.

Terrence Long was on that team or no? Yeah. Because there was that outfield that was like long die and... Yeah, and Chavez. They had good pitchers that were there already. But I think it was more of the mentality of just we got to do something.

to different and the fact that they thought they could replace Jeremy or Jason Giambi who was you know the MVP yeah and that they just looked at what is stats or like how can we piece this together with multiple people with his brother Scott Hatterberg and and right some other guy that nobody had ever heard of and what are they and what are the inefficiencies to exploit which is really the lesson of the movie and the coolest thing of the movie and something that has completely changed sports over the last 15 years absolutely so it's like one of of the quotes in here was people are overlooked for a variety of reasons or flaws. Joan Hill says that.

Yeah. The island of misfits toys. It's a great point. And the way they set up like the scouts and the old guys and that classic quote of when they're talking about that one guy is like, he's got an ugly girlfriend. He's noticeable. Got an ugly girlfriend. What's that man?

Ugly girlfriend means no confidence. Okay. Oh, no, you guys are full of it. Artie is right. This guy's got an attitude. An attitude is good. I mean, it's the kind of guy walks into a room. His dick has already been there for two minutes.

That's the way scouts talked back then. They just didn't look at things. When you gets the club head on the ball, it makes a great sound. I'm watching this guy. Yeah. Watching guys for 40 years. You're the best. Do you think it's offensive to scouts the way they characterize them?

I mean, I understand. I would hope it was offensive to them because they completely marginalized them and made it seem like their way was dying. And they make it this Freudian thing almost where it's like Bean's revenge against the scouts who lied to him about how good he was. Right. or just didn't accurately characterize his or project what he was going to do, right? Yeah, he, they make that a theme in the movie. And I don't know how accurate it was. Yeah.

About that part of what Stan Billy Bean's resentment of the soul system. Like there's some stuff in the book about him being a five tool player. Yeah. I would say some of that had to exist. But I think, I think. But is the implication in the book that he's like, I would have just like gone to Stanford or something if it hadn't been these. guys who dissuaded me from doing that.

Well, the part that's unrealistic is like when he asked Joan Hill, when would you drafted me? Oh, would you draft me? Yeah. He's like, I looked at your stats, ninth round. It's like, come on. So one of the things that with Jerry McGuire, Tin Cup and threw Moneyball, these, you know, and in a weird way, you have movies like Rudy or Hoosiers or something that are very traditional.

Like, it's an underdog. There's like a big game. They win. But the really exciting, interesting sports movies are all. often ones that take some of the skeleton of a sports movie like that, but make it about different stuff. So the best part of Moneyball is this, I mean, the most like sort of entertaining part of Moneyball is this part from right after they make Art Howe start pitching Bradford and playing Scott Hadderberg. Right. And then the next scene is this montage or this gorgeous score. Michael Dina, I think,

does the score. And it's like kind of like this Philip Glass music. It's really beautiful. And they just start doing this montage. But, Instead of it being like this pep talk, he's basically telling guys to take walks. Yeah. And then it culminates and it peaks with them going back to the Indians and getting Rincone, right, on the trade deadline. The trade where he's got four teams on the phone in three minutes. He's making offers. Nobody, you can never hear what the other teams are offering.

He's playing Steve Phillips against Mark Shapiro, against Brian Stavion. Nobody's like, he's in a meeting. He's in the bathroom now. They're all right available. It's right before cell phones became so ubiquitous. so he still has his secretary's calling. Yeah. And she's like, Sabian's holding for you on line one.

Hold on, I got Ed Wade on line too. But a lot of GM blasts for the past there. Oh, so good. Call Ed Wade. He's a good guy. But I know why they have to do this stuff. Like, when I used to watch when I was living in Boston, I would go over and hang out, my dad and my stepmom.

My stepmom's a doctor. And that was when ER started. We were watching ER. And she'd be like, oh, my God, they'd never do that. Oh, yeah. Oh, the nurse would never be in there for that. I'd be like, shut up. Just can I just watch ER?

This is why everybody had the reaction they did to the last season of the wire is like all these journalists were like, what? Yeah. Come on. But it is when you get behind the curtain, but you kind of know a little bit about what's behind the curtain. It's tough. Yeah.

Didn't bother me that much than the moment. But actually bothered me more with draft day. Oh, okay. Those trades they made in draft day, I just couldn't get passes. The draft day is basically to me, it's like, it's like, Olympus has fallen. It's not very realistic. Wait, how to have to.

I'm getting my, because I want to get my fix back. Yeah, that is true. Yeah. The, I think to be a great sports movie, you have to have a chill scene. Yeah. I'm on the record with that. Okay. I have to get goosebumps or chills or there has to be one moment.

There's got to be a moment. If I'm flipping channels, I'm saying to myself, oh, that scene's coming up. I'm sticking around. The Billy Bob Thornton half-time speech is coming. Yeah. Yeah. The 20-game win streak followed by they almost blow the, or 19-game, they almost blow the 11-0 lead. And then it's 11-11.

And Hatter comes up. Yeah. hits the home run. It's a chill scene. It's really good. It's really well done. And it was, they didn't really have a way to end the movie because they got smoked in the playoffs by the twins. Yes.

So they really kind of almost end the movie on that. And then the second ending is the Red Sox. Do you like the Fenway stuff? Yeah, because, you know, obviously the biggest stretch in the whole movie is John Henry making it seem like he was this gregarious. John Henry is like Steve Jobs at this movie. Yeah, yeah. He's like, they don't understand. Do you want to tell him?

they're wrong. The real John Henry would have just been staring at like a thing of sugar the entire time as he awkwardly talked to Billy Bean. But it is. I love the way that they were like, you want to have an espresso or just hang it out in Fenway Park. Right. That's great. It is an amazing what if though.

Yeah. Because really he should have gone to the Red Sox. I know he had family stuff and he wanted to stay near his daughter. But when you look back at it, what I think he didn't take into account was how replicable all the stuff he was doing was. He was like, oh, we got to look at. guys who get on base and inefficiencies and whip and these things that now seem super basic. But at the time, it's like, whoa, what's Billy Bean doing?

It's like he's doing stuff that Theo Epstein is about to do with the Red Sox and all these teams just copied. He's going to do again with the Cugs. Yeah, exactly. So I think to go to the Red Sox with the team that they had with four times the payroll, it was almost like he should have just leveraged this one idea that he had that was just about to replicate it. But I don't think he knew that. Yeah. I think you mentioned something.

with the family stuff is that, and it's, it's kind of the secret sauce to this movie and a lot of the really, really top-notch sports movies, like whether it's, whether it's Jerry McGuire and Tim Cup or Bull Durham or whatever, is that there has to be that extra sports layer to it. And Moneyball actually is two. It has, first it's got, it's a great buddy movie. So it's got a real like Midnight Run, the Sting, Butch and Sundance, kind of like, a couple paired together. But you can just tell the chemistry is incredible between. the two of them. Yeah.

So just hanging out in their office, you're like, this is great. Jonah Hill and handsome actors. He clicks with them, man. He's really good at it. It's his lane. And then the family stuff, which is, you know, in most, in a lot of movies, like, it'll feel stapled on. And it is pretty ridiculous when Spike Jones shows up as Robin Wright, his ex-wife's new,

new husband or whatever. But this stuff for the daughter is pretty effective in this movie. Right. I thought so. I think it's more than effective. I think you can make a case that the scene when she plays the guitar and Brad Pitt has that reaction to it, makes the whole movie. Yeah.

You need to sing. It's so good. I'm lying. I don't want people to listen to me. Well, honey, I think people would love to listen to you. That's beautiful. Would you sing a little for your dad? Right here in the middle of the store?

A little bit. A little bit. I'm just a little bit caught in the middle. You're all in on that character after that. It's just a great dad-daughter moment. And, you know, classic Sorkin. because that's what he does. There's a lot of sorkynism.

Yeah, that's a very sorky moment. Back in 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's such a good moment. And those are, that's one of those moments why the actors take the script where they read that scene.

They're like, oh, I can't wait. Should I put my hand on my face? What do I do? Should I cry? Should I feel like I'm... But after that, you're all in on the guy. And he's also,

it's Robin Wright's last long hair movie appearance, I think. What is it? It's the tail end of just print from Princess Bride to 2011, Robin Wright. had such a weird career.

So beautiful. Yeah, but she's the ex-wife, she's married to the dorky tech guy. To Spike Jones. This is incredible.

That's what that was. Yeah. It's so weird. Spike Jones is just in Moneyball. I don't know. I think he's friends with Bennett Miller

and all those guys. And why is Chris Pratt, Scott Hadderberg? So Pratt, that was still Parks and Rec Pratt. But when we were talking about this the other day, there are certain movies

where now if you wanted to say, if I went to you a studio right now and I was like, I want to make Moneyball. They'd be like, no because there's no X-Men or Batman in it. But second, it would be like, is the GM a superhero?

Yeah, they were like, well, who's in the cast? And I was like, Chris Pratt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt. They would be like. And Philips see what happened. Well, Philips see more often. If he was alive. Chris Pratt is a $25 million or a movie guy now.

Like there's the appreciation if it was a stock, it would be impossible to make that. I think you were talking about what was the other one you were saying? I was like that. Working girl. Working girl was like that. Because Sigourney Weaver's in that, right? It had Sigourney and Harrison Ford in their primes.

Melanie Griffith about to be in her prime and then Alck Baldwin. Yeah. But before he'd hit. And then there's a whole bunch of other people like Joan Kusack and all that stuff. But it's one of those cast that five years later would have been four times more expensive. I love when that happens. Yeah. It's really cool.

I mean, it's just such a perfectly cast movie. I don't know. Yeah. It's a shame. I think that the spirit of this movie continues with Big Short. you know, I think that they did, it's the same kind of vibe where it's like really well written, really well acted, takes a very complicated idea, breaks it down, probably over-dramatizes it in some cases, but makes it really accessible for a mass audience.

So the heroes of this movie, one of the reasons it's so, it's so strange as a rewatch, Chad Bradford, yes, Scott Haddeberg, Jeremy Giambi, David Justice, and Ricardo Rincon. And a guy who's supposed to be Paul D. Podesta. Yeah. And fake Paul D. Patesta are the people that are turning baseball on its ear and leading the Oakland A is to an improbable first round loss. Yeah. So when you just look at it on paper, it's like this is ridiculous.

But, you know, it's really about just changing the mindset. And, you know, one of the key scenes is Brad Pickett in the argument with the scout. Billy, you got a kid in there that's got a degree in economics from Yale. You got a scout here with 29 years of baseball experience. You're listening to the wrong one. Now, there are intangibles that only baseball people understand. You're discounting what scouts have done for 150 years, even yourself? Adapt or die.

This is about you and your shit, isn't it? Okay. I don't give a shit about friendship, this situation, or the past. Major League Baseball thinks the way I think. You're not going to win. It's great because they don't punch each other, but it's really violent and there's so much anger. And finally, like, somebody touches his shoulder, he brushes it off. But it's just such a well-written, well-acted scene.

I don't even know who that actor is. The guy, wait, which guy? The head scout guy. Oh, I don't know that guy either. He was excellent. Yeah. There's also that, that's, there's one scene when he goes, he tries to go, to convince Art How to play Hatterberg.

The way it ends is, like, good meeting. Our chat's always reinvigorated. great my love of the game. Right. And he like waddles off. Kind of waddles off and shoves a laundry dumpster away. Right. You can just tell he's so pissed off.

Yeah. It's great. What did you think of the book when it came out? Because this is one of those cases where I feel like I, it's a lot like no country for old men, where the book is incredible. And then the movie is just as incredible. And I remember Moneyball, like I was a little late to it when the book came out, but it was definitely one of those.

I read it in six hours. Like it was just so addictive, so immediately. It's funny because I had my old website, 97 in 2001. I remember writing a column about Derek Jeter in 2001. It was right when the stat stuff was starting, and Rob Nyer was starting to take hold. And Rob Nyer was saying like Jeter was, forget what the column was,

but it was something about our Jeter, the stats didn't back up how everybody felt about him. And I wrote this whole column about how he was the Yankee I was the most afraid of, and it was very dismissive of the stat people. It's like, all right, settle down everyone over here. Right, right. And then the stuff like when the money ball season, that was a real illuminating thing, where it's like, wow, I got to re-look at this.

And I think the progress we made from when that book came out all the way through Darry and the Sloan conference and some of the ways football changed. Baseball was the first sport that totally changed. Yeah. And I think even with the Red Sox stayed where they were just like, we went on-base guys with power. Right, Euclus. Yeah, yeah, all those guys. It was like they went, they had already had Manny in place.

They went and got Ortiz from the twins because he had, you know, they saw something and whatever his stats were and just on down the line. And it completely changed how I followed sports. I remember at 2008, I was trying, I was totally sold on baseball and was not sold on basketball. Okay. And just thought, this can't translate to basketball. Basketball relies too much on how you interact. interact with the other guys.

Yeah, yeah. Like, fuck you guys. Don't tell me this is now bad. Don't rate guys with stats. Like, I hated that shit. What was that guy who wrote that piece that Alan Iverson when he won the MVP was like the 150th best player statistically?

I know what you're talking about, but I don't remember. The wages of wins. I was like, get the fuck out of this stuff. But basketball stats, I think have gotten really good. And some of the stuff were like, where guys shoot in the floor, the pace stats, the defensive plus minus. Usage stuff is cool. The usage stuff is really cool.

And PR as limited as it is as a stat is still fun to look at. Do you remember the basketball team or the moment in basketball where you were like, oh, was there like an O moment for you? What's Zach Mack typing? What typing over there? Zach Max's with us, by the way. Came from Brooklyn to work with us. Everybody goes from Brooklyn.

What's a better name than Zach Mack? I don't know. We made him in a lab. I think in retrospect, we didn't see it totally, but the 08 rockets when they won the 22 straight. McGrady? And it was like McGrady. It was like the Kimmy-Mittumbo's Dead Body and Chuck Evans and Ray for Austin.

And it was we couldn't figure out what was happening in the moment. It was like, how is this team winning? And then now I think if you look back statistically at some of the stuff they figured out, like the amount of threes they took, the way they control. the pace, the fact that they're rebounding and all this. I'm sure there's some statistical thing that made it, made totally sense. But that was the first time of you were just like, this is weird. Yeah.

Yeah, well, because I knew he was up to stuff because I knew him from Boston, and I knew he had what he called the model. Yeah. And I kind of eventually figured out what the model was, but at the time I was really curious by it. But I was writing my MBA book from 0708, 2009. I didn't really know how to measure stuff in the past. Yeah.

A big part of my book was measuring guys from the past against each other and all that. The stats really weren't there. I think if I wrote that book now, I would have leaned much more heavily on the pace stats and even stuff like PR. I hated PR when I was doing my book. I was like, what the hell is this? We're going to rate guys by some arbitrary things. You would have used those more as like a historical measuring tool.

Yeah, like one of my things was about how Oscar Robertson's triple double was totally overrated in 1961, 62 because of the field goal attempts. Right. And I went through and I'm painstakingly going through field goal attempts pretty. game and now they just have the pace rating. Right. But I was like, if they're shooting 120 shots a game, obviously there's going to be 70 rebounds available on every game.

So of course he should have gotten 10. There's something to a kind of, I mean, I think that the advanced metrics stuff has really like awakened, is really illuminated so many different parts of the game. But there is something kind of educational about that like hand, like the painstaking kind of like looking at the basic numbers that you can see. and trying to like derive meaning out of them, even if sometimes the meaning you're getting is not exactly accurate.

I agree. But I do think with baseball, it's altered baseball to the point that I don't even think we're allowed to have opinions anymore. I thought it was ludicrous that Mike Trout won the MVP. Yeah. His team finished 21 games out of first place. But you're apparently like the only person in America who believes that?

I just think like, what is the MVP then? Are we voting for the best player? We vote for the MVP because most valuable players, to me means that your team achieved something. Right. But then the counter to that is, well, Mike Trout, he shouldn't be penalized because he's on a bad team. Right.

So if that's fine, then just call it the best player. I think that- Why are we calling it most viable? His team went 72 and 90. I'm actually just, I'm just really bad at numbers and math in general. So the thing that I mostly take from money ball, from the stuff that Michael Lewis has written about Wall Street and from a lot of the stuff that's come out since then, especially for basketball, it's just like the ability to think differently about it.

I remember the first team that I kind of was just like, man, this is just really different. I didn't even like it. I didn't like watching it. And I also was like kind of glad when it was broken up, but was the Dwight Howard magic team. Oh, yeah. And I was just like, do you think that was an advanced metrics thing? No, but it was more just like, what if we just tried this? And I think that a lot of him was shooters.

And that it's like, it's like put the best center in the league with shooters. You know what I mean? And I was like, you can do that. You know, you don't have to have a point guard to shoot. guard a small forward, a power forward, and they all play in these very specific spots on the floor and have very specific roles. And that was such like a weird, like, oh, yeah, why wouldn't you just do that? Now it's impossible to guard the floor because everybody has to crowd around Dwight or play the perimeter and there's, it's just, it's unbeatable unless you're like a better

athletic team, which is what they felt they went facing. I don't know who figured out the three point thing first, but whoever figured out that three points were better than long twos, that guy changed basketball. Well, I was, you know, I was trying to think on my way over here about what would be good, what would be other cool money balls they could make. I think they could make a really cool seven seconds or less money ball movie. Yeah, I don't know. The money ball, I think it's, I think it's lightning in a bottle. It's like making another. But just the idea of like we're going to try something different. And you got to admit, with the suns that year, you could get, I mean, De Niro is probably a little too long in the tooth to play Dantone. But you have like so many different opportunities. We got

Dan Tony, Gentry. And then you could have like, you know, Shiala Buf could play Steve Nash. I feel like seven or seven seconds or less was really just give Steve Nash the ball with pace. Yeah. It was a tiny bit overrated. I think what Dan Tony's doing with James Hardin is much more innovative.

Because he's like, just like, you just have the ball all the time. Not just that, but he unleashed him as a passer. I never knew James Hardin was as good of a passer as he is. Did you? No, I didn't, not, I didn't think he was interested in that. It's inconceivable to me that somebody has a chance to average 30 points and 13 assists a game. Yeah. It's just like unless you're shooting like at 1962, you're taking 120 shots a game.

Right. Just the usage rate slash responsibility slash high efficiency to be able to do that is off the charts. Can we talk about Brad Pitt? Yeah, sure. Let's talk about Brad Pitt. Has Brad Pitt overachieved, underachieved, or achieved the right amount? for what his talent was and the possibilities that his career had in your mind? I think that Brad Pitt has overachieved based on his actually gifts.

Like, I don't think that he's actually like a stunning actor. And when he pushes himself out into the outer reaches of playing, you know, a Kundun and he's climbing a mountain to go meet, you know, the, the Dalai Lama or, whatever that movie was about. I can't remember. But when he's, when he's in these, like, super serious. Seven years in Tibet. Seven years in Tibet. Yeah. It felt like seven years. He did. And I think when Brad Pitt leans into the fact that he is probably one of the most just naturally charismatic movie stars we've had in the last 30 years, he just makes incredible movies. Well, it's weird because who was the one who said that Brad Pitt would have been the greatest

character actor of all time. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know who said that, but that's exactly. Because he was too handsome to be a character actor, but that's what he should have been. have been like, John, late career John Voight. He's, or he's, he's,

he's just managed a nobly. Like, if, if he just comes in for 25 to 35 minutes, there are a lot of times where, you know,

Brad Pitt is carrying a movie and it doesn't necessarily work out. So if you go through his IMDB, yeah. In my opinion, if, if you're going to be like a real A list who had a real long career

that had a lot of twists and turns in a good way. So this is starting with, like, 91 with Thelma. Right. Yeah. After 25 years, I need like 10 movies.

Okay. So Thelma's great performance. True romance. True romance. That's a star making performance in Thelma and Louise and then a like icon making performance and true romance. One of the legendary pre-internet performances. Oh, incredible. Post-internet that goes to a little level.

But pre-internet that was just like underground. We're talking about it at bars and stuff like that. Seven? A classic. Seven is a classic. A great movie that he's great in and has great scenes in. and actually plays a character, not just Brad Pitt? It's also really good because Brad Pitt is just, I'm going to hit this again.

He's very good at playing people who are up against the barriers of their own intelligence. Right. So like him getting cliff notes about Dante's Inferno, it really works for that character. Fight Club. Yeah. The lost great Brad Pitt performance. And a great movie that I, for some reason, has not aged the way I thought it would age. To me, it's like the way Boogie Nights is always on cable, even.

now in Rounders and I feel like Fight Club should be in that mix. Yeah, I feel like Fight Club had that kind of, it's gone through so many different cycles of critical re-appreciation because of, you know, people thinking it's a satire or not a satire and people taking it too seriously and be like, yes, like, screw your IKEA furniture and your like parochial, like, government. It's like, just, come on. What a movie. Ocean's 11.

Yeah. And can I say something here about Ocean's just in general? Brad Pitt is one of the great two-man actors. So like if he's in a movie with Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Edward Norton, Jonah Hill, if he's got somebody he's like paired with, he's great. When he's out on his own and it's doing me Joe Black, it's tough. Yeah, that's kind of like me.

Mr. Mrs. Smith, I'm not giving it to him. I need to watch it again, but it had so much personal life baggage hanging over it. Yeah. I actually think it was probably a really good movie that in its own merits would have been. Yeah. But it was like once.

you saw it, it was like, oh, yeah, this is not even as interesting as what's happening outside of your life. Would you give him Inglorious Bastards? I liked it. I liked Inglorious Bastards. Did you put that on the short list of Brad Pitt movies? Like, I'm taking 10 Brad Pitt movies to a Desert Island. I mean, he's not one of the biggest. To me, he's really good in that movie, but it's so, that movie's so dominated by Christoph Waltz. Moneyball. Can I, can I shout out an underrated one? Sure. Spy game. Yeah, okay. I wouldn't put that on the Desert Island. No. I mean, he really hasn't. Ocean's 11. Yeah, you're right. So Ocean's 11. It's a weird IMDB. He's great in Jesse James.

I think he's made the mistake that Cruz kind of made too for a while where you just kind of forget to be Brad Pitt for too many years. Cruz did the same thing. It's like, just be Tom Cruise every once in a while. That's why he makes a Mission Impossible movie every two months. And then he was like, I'll just be time. Matt Damon is great at everyone's lives. I'm just going to be Matt Damon. I'm going to be the Martian. Yeah. I'm just going to do Matt Damon things. It's something that I wish Leo would do a little bit more as an actor. Because Leo's always playing somebody.

It's just like, be Leo. Be like a divorce lawyer who's still in love with his ex-wife. McConaughey's really good at playing McConaughey every few years. It's good. It's not bad. And the guy who's the best at it ever is Denzel. Yeah. He's usually Denzel just with like maybe a slightly different haircut or a different job.

But he's Denzel. And then occasionally he'll break out and he'll be trying. training day Denzel. Sure. Or he'll be like, you don't live in this courtroom, do you, Denzel? Who would you like to see to end it on sports movies? Like who needs a sports movie right now? Oh, that's a good one.

Like an actor you think is like right there ready to do a sports movie. Other than Costa? You think he should, there's movies he has in sports movie. He hasn't made a hockey movie. He hasn't been a wrestling coach yet. There's sports that he hasn't done. He should make the sequel to. a foxcatcher.

Well, who were there? I think Leo could do one. Couldn't he? I don't know. I can't tell if Leo, like, is, like, I know he goes to his sporting events, but do you think he could make a sports movie? Like, what would Leo do? Could Leo be like, like, an actor?

I'm sorry, not an actor. Like, an owner? Like, somebody who made his money in the, like, in the, like, a VAC. I mean, he played Brady in a deflate game movie. No, I don't see him as, like, an athlete. I see him as, like, a behind, like, he's. Like an agent. He's a disruptor.

almost like Brad Pitt and Moneyball where Leo's like the new wave owner in the NFL that the other owners don't like. Oh, he's like Robert Para. Yeah, he's, he has Robert Parr. Nobody knows how it got his money. Why are you talking up in the owner's meetings, Leo? It's one of those type of things.

Why, who would you say? I'm glad Michael B. Jordan made one. I'll tell you that much. Michael B. Jordan made one. It was bad time. He could make another one for me. Mileseller just made this one, but I think he's good at him. They all do boxing, though.

Yeah, I know, because they all just want to get chiseled and be naked in their posters. It's just like, look how good I like. Woody Harrison, when he did White Men Can't Jump, it completely reinvented his career. Yes. Because he was just Woody on chairs. And then all of a sudden he's in this basketball movie.

Literally, like, eight years off from making good stuff and then just show up in something. And everybody's just like, I love Woody Harrelson. He's got another one coming, right? Woody Harrelson? He has another, like, Oscar movie. I saw the poster when I went to the movies the other day. He's, like, in everything.

It's so hard to remember what he's in. I would like to see, I don't know. I'm trying to think of who I would really want to see. David should make. I know he made the rugby movie. I'm still mad about that one. Can Affleck do one? No, he's too old.

I think these guys are too old now. They're all late 40s. It's got to be maybe Chris Pratt. Pratt could do it. Doubles back. Yeah. Something, I don't know. Part of my fear with sports movies

and why we want to do this money ball one in this pot in general is that, you know, all the ideas are kind of done. I bet they say that every five years for sports movies. They'll figure it out. You can't just keep doing the Rocky plot, though. It's got it. And I also feel like,

Like, you know what would have been a really interesting one? And this is obviously can't happen for a variety of reasons. But I would love to see someone have done the Chip Kelly story. If Chip Kelly his career had gone in a different direction, like if he had been more successful, but that whole idea of someone coming up from New Hampshire going to Oregon and like this weird system with the signs on the sideline, you know, like the way they call the plays with like, you know,

different posters on the sideline. I think there's something like really visual. And also like it has that it's an innovative. thing that nobody believed in and then it worked out. But with Chip Kelly, the problem is it didn't work out. See, here's the thing. And this is one of the reasons sports movies have changed so much since, I would say, 08,09.

30 for 30 and the sports documentary boom has blown out some of these stories in ways where a lot of these stories should just be sports documentaries. Well, they're going to make a Leicester City movie apparently. Really? Yeah. A sports movie about Leicester City? Yeah. And that's one of those where I think, you know, the 30 for 30 on that would probably have been

better, right? It's so unbelievable. I don't really need a story. I mean, they could make it in 15 years, like the way they did Miracle or something, but it's not the same as, like, I just saw it. Like, what do I need to see? Miracle is a good example of probably would have been just better as an awesome documentary. Yeah, but you just don't get Kurt Russell.

You got to get Kurt Russell. You don't get Kurt Russell. Yeah, but so I wonder, like, with the documentaries and the way, we used to have this issue when we were doing the 30 for 30s where we'd be talking about ideas. Like, is that a movie or a documentary? Most of the time it was a documentary, but sometimes it was a movie. Like, I don't think Moneyball could have been a documentary.

Yeah. You know, so I guess it's a case-by-case basis. I don't know where this stuff goes. I don't, same shoot be wrote on The Ringer this month about boxing movies and why do they keep making them. Yeah. And I think it's all actor vanity. I think it's actually very, very, very understandable of like the stakes. Like, it's, you don't have to explain boxing to anybody.

It's just fighting, you know, and you don't have to explain, like, Nobody makes boxing movies about champions. They make them about the underdogs. And it's like pretty straightforward. One thing I would like to see with sports movies, they made the mistake of like, do you do Ali? And it covers from 1961 and 1975.

And it's this big sweeping thing that doesn't really target anything. Yeah. I would like to see sports movies about specific points. Oh, cool. You know, like if somebody made a movie about Michael Jordan in 1993, and I'm not saying they would, and I think it would be really hard to do a basketball movie

where somebody who's playing Michael Jordan. Yeah. But you're just in that spring with, you know, all the gambling stuff and three straight years and the media picking at them and all the way through and just like him kind of taking all his frustrates out in the court. Yeah.

That's still probably a documentary, you know? And I think that's the problem. And that's how you end up with these niche-neach movies. Yeah. Where, you know, the wrestler is a good example. that's a sports movie. I don't think that could have been a documentary, but it has been.

We've seen it like Razor Ramon, E-60, half-hour thing on Razor Ramon. I kind of like the sports movie version of that more. I think there's something that's always going to be thrilling about seeing a movie start playing an athlete. So I think that these movies will keep going on. It really just depends on their interest in doing it. All right.

So our final verdict on Moneyball is... Oh, I forgot one thing. This is really important. Hit me. Brad Pitt lost the 2012 Oscar. For a money ball. He was nominated. First question, do you know who won the Oscar?

We had Grantland at this point. This was only four years ago. Was it somebody in a David O'Russell movie? Long silence from Chris Ryan. No? Do you know Zach Beck? It was the dude from the player, or the, I'm sorry, the artist. Oh, yeah.

That silent movie. That guy. That guy. That guy won the Oscar for that movie. Your other nominees were George Clooney for the descendants. That's fine. It's fine. It was a nominatable, nominable, nominable, nominations.

It was better. Yeah. Gary Oldman for Tinker, Taylor Spy. He's pretty good in that, but that was largely based on somebody else's performance of that role. And I just have in my notes, Beecher, B-I-C-H-I-R, whoever that is. I don't know. That was the other nominee. That's all it says? Beecher.

Okay. So that was Brad Pitt's best chance. I don't think it happens now. And you look back and it's like, really the guy from the fucking artist won the Oscar, he didn't say anything? It's sometimes that's really the story. Yeah, right. Goodfellists didn't win best picture. This is just the world we live in.

I don't like it. Okay. I wish we could go back in time and redo the Oscars. All right. So we're going to keep doing these, but Moneyball, best sports movie possibly of the century. Yeah. I mean, maybe not the best, but certainly the most rewatchable, which in my opinion makes it the best because I think a big part of this is how does it hold up?

Yes. I think it held up at the time. It was very well received critically. It's very well acted. It's incredibly well done. Pick got nominated for an Oscar. So that part was great. And then over time, I think it's really held up.

And I think it captures a really important moment in sports, you know, whereas like you'd take something like a million dollar baby, which I didn't feel like should have done as well as it did with the awards when it happened. I would never watch that again, would you? I know. Would you be like, oh, cool. Hey, honey, come on in. million-dard babies on. I never want to see the movie get in my life. So I think there's something

to that that you want to re-watch them. All right. Anyway, thanks Chris Ryan. Thanks, Paulson.