Baseball by the Numbers

Location Info

Map

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St. (at Valencia)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Category: Performing Arts Venues

Region: Mission/ Bernal Heights

Photos

2 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare	0

Related Content

• "Moneyball": Formula Works for Sabermetrics Sports Flick
  September 21, 2011
• Bragging Rights
  March 28, 2012
• Sorry, Simba Moneyball is King of the Jungle
  September 27, 2011
• Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Stop in Oakland Tonight
  September 19, 2011
• Lost Boys of Summer: Some Ex-Ballplayers Seek Help From MLB
  March 28, 2012

More About

• Michael Lewis
• Billy Beane
• Moneyball (Movie)
• College Baseball
• Sabermetrics

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Michael Lewis's book Moneyball was published in 2003, in the immediate wake of The Season That Shook Baseball. The story didn't look like much on the surface: Billy Beane, a former ballplayer-turned-scout-turned-GM, and Paul DePodesta, an Ivy League wonk, took the Oakland Athletics' measly $39 million salary budget, crunched the numbers, and turned overlooked, undervalued statistics into overachieving, undervalued ballplayers. The book would serve as a Bible for every baseball executive and stats-obsessed fan, and it turns out that adapting it for the cineplex was fairly straightforward after all: Like every other sports movie ever, it's the story of The Little Team That Could. Lewis's account is simply inspiration; director Bennett Miller (Capote) and writers Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian barely touch upon sabermetrics and the influential work of statistician Bill James. The filmmakers wisely boil down Beane and DePodesta's complex formulas to a single, simple thesis: Sign ballplayers who get on base more than anyone else. Then they hand over the movie to Brad Pitt as Beane, a former first-round draft pick by the New York Mets exorcising his dashed-dream demons one trade, thrown chair, and turned-over watercooler at a time. Play ball.
Fri., Dec. 23; Dec. 25-Jan. 5, 2011