Moneyball: The True Story Behind The Brad Pitt Movie Explained

It has been nearly 14 years since Bennett Miller's brilliant sports drama "Moneyball" hit theaters. Based on Michael Lewis' book, "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," the film stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, a former MLB player and general manager of the Oakland Athletics, who attempts to assemble a competitive team with significantly less money than his rivals. With the help of Yale Economics graduate, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane scouts the MLB for undervalued players using a sabermetric approach to assembling a quality team.

"Moneyball" served as a thoroughly entertaining and compelling exploration into the behind-the-scenes machinations of baseball, rather than the formulaic sports movie approach following an underdog team's rise to the occasion against all odds. Much of the film's strengths are found within its script, which was originally written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List") and was rewritten by fellow Academy Award-winner Aaron Sorkin ("The Social Network"). The film's script is rich with dialogue that makes the more, for lack of a better term, "inside baseball" aspects digestible even for audiences with little to no understanding of the sport and/or the major league itself. Paired with Bennett Miller's expert direction and two compelling turns from Brad Pitt and a revelatory Jonah Hill, you get one of the best sports films of the 2010s. If you are a fan of "Moneyball," there are numerous other sports films that will give you a similar feel, which you can check out right here.

Released in 2011, "Moneyball" received widespread critical acclaim, garnering six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), and Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill). For much of the praise given to its artistic merits, much talk is also to be found about what aspects of the story are truly accurate. In particular, how the staff of the Oakland Athletics reacted to Billy Beane's new tactics and the portrayals of characters Peter Brand and Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

In "Moneyball," Billy Beane's implementation of sabermetrics into the Oakland Athletics' new scouting philosophy was received with much tension from the team's staff. However, the real-life events were exaggerated for dramatic effect because the staff were quite supportive of Beane's new methods. In the film, Beane is shown butting heads with coaches and scouts, which understandably plays into the dramatic conflict of the narrative for a more compelling film.

In one pivotal scene of the film, Billy Beane fires Oakland Athletics' head scout, Grady Fuson (Ken Medlock), due to his refusal to abandon his traditional scouting methods in favor of Beane's new philosophy. Given the need to exaggerate certain real-life events for dramatic effect, the script alters the real-life events regarding Fuson's departure. In reality, Fuson resigned from his post with the Oakland Athletics on his own volition to pursue a new job with the Texas Rangers, despite admiring Beane's new approach to scouting.

As for Oakland Athletics' manager Art Howe, his portrayal in both the film and Michael Lewis' book was subject to much criticism, particularly from Howe himself. "Moneyball" depicts the professional relationship between Howe and Billy Beane as one that was in constant conflict, reaching adversarial levels. However, Howe claims that although he maintained disagreements, it was kept on a professional level between him and Beane. Howe expressed his disappointment with his portrayal to SiriusXM radio (via Fox Sports):

"It is very disappointing to know that you spent seven years in an organization and gave your heart and soul to it and helped them go to the postseason your last three years there and win over 100 games your last two seasons — and this is the way evidently your boss (Beane) feels about you... They never called me to get my slant on things as far as the movie was concerned. So, I mean, it's coming from someone. I don't know who it is, but maybe it is Hollywood to make it sell, I guess. I don't know... I spent my whole career trying to build a good reputation and I think I did that but this movie certainly doesn't help it. And it is definitely unfair and untrue. If you ask any player that ever played for me they would say that they never saw this side of me, ever."

The character of Peter Brand is fictional, a composite of Billy Beane's numerous assistants while also being inspired by Paul DePodesta, the front office assistant for the Oakland Athletics who also served as second-in-command to Beane. The film originally had DePodesta's name used in the script, with actor Demetri Martin set to portray him. However, DePodesta requested to have his name removed, which led to the renaming of the character as Peter Brand, with Jonah Hill replacing Martin in the role.

Similar to Art Howe, Paul DePodesta did not approve of his portrayal in both the book and film, but still had respect for Jonah Hill's performance. He reflected on his decision to distance himself from the adaptation by having his name removed in an interview with Yahoo Sports:

"There were a handful of things ... Some were factual, others were more ephemeral. Jonah was awesome. He was so respectful of me and my time. It would have been flattering to be portrayed by someone of his expertise. It had nothing to do with the casting. I feel really bad for Jonah. It had nothing to do with him at all. And I think he's caught a lot of flak about this."

Paul DePodesta also acknowledged in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he understands why a film would find the need to exaggerate certain events for dramatic effect. He further expressed that even with that in mind, he remains uncomfortable with seeing someone else portray him, especially given that it can paint his reputation in a different light than he would like to be seen as:

"I just could never get comfortable with the idea of somebody else portraying me to the rest of the world. Like any movie, to make it interesting, there has to be some conflict there. In some respects, a lot of the conflict is going to revolve around my character, and that was never really the case in reality."

Given that part of the narrative of "Moneyball" involved the idea of assembling a competitive baseball team with a smaller budget compared to teams with significantly more financial resources, the film showcased that part of the Oakland Athletics' success during the 2002 season was due to the team being mostly comprised of role players with few big name players. However, the real-life 2002 team still had its share of star players that the film omitted from the story.

In particular, players such as American League MVP Miguel Tejada and Gold Glove winner Eric Chavez were not featured in the film, despite playing a pivotal role in the Oakland Athletics' season in 2002. But perhaps most notorious is the exclusion of the pitching staff of Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, and Tim Hudson, who had a combined record of 57 wins and 493 strikeouts. Zito, in particular, was the recipient of that season's Cy Young Award.

In other words, while many elements of "Moneyball" are based on fact, the film plays fast and loose with the truth in the name of telling a good story. 

"Moneyball" is available to own on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.