"Moneyball" was released in theatres last week to rave reviews. It is based on the book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis, and tells the story of Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland A's. Beane was given a very small budget for players, 28th in the league that year, yet managed to assemble a team that won over 100 games. He was able to accomplish this through what is known as sabremetrics.
Art Howe, former Mets manager, was the Oakland A's manager at the time, and he felt slighted by his portrayal in the aforementioned film. In the film, Art Howe is portrayed as simply unimportant, with pretty much all of the teams success the result of Billy Beane. One scene even has Beane, portrayed by Brad Pitt, laughing at Art Howe being given credit for the teams success. Howe stated of the movie "It wasn't even close to my personality. They just went out of their way to degrade me." The Oakland A's did achieve great success under Art Howe's managerial reign, twice winning over 100 games, however as Moneyball argues Art Howe deserves little credit for the teams success. It is an age old question in baseball, and a battle that is still being fought by sabremetric analysts. What do yo think?
I've read the book twice and saw the movie last week. I don't think Art Howe's character was completely true to form, based on what I read in the book. But then again, what was Howe expecting? He knows he didn't come off looking good in the book. If he worried how he was going to come across on the screen, he could have not lent his name, as Paul DePodesta (AKA Peter Brand in the movie) chose to do.
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