When I commented on Brad Pitt’s Robert Redford look on the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of Angelina Jolie’s Salt, I completely forgot he was currently filming the baseball movie Moneyball, starring as Okaland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, who is “The Natural” of major league managers!
Thanks to a diligent photographer and a very powerful telephoto lens, we’ve got our first look from the set of Moneyball showing the Redfordesque Pitt chilling on the field in a dark polo shirt, tennis shoes, khaki pants, a small bandaid and a visor.
Moneyball is based on the Michael Lewis book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, a non-fiction account of how Billy Beane was able to take a small market team like the Oakland Athletics and compete with larger teams with larger budgets. His solution was to gather up some serious number-crunching geeks who created computer programs to analyze vast amounts of statistical data to make projections and determine which players (and kinds of players) were undervalued. The result was hugely successful for Beane and the Athletics, who are consistently in contention for a division title even with their financial handicap.
Sound boring? You have to remember that the book and Beane’s rosters are chock full of underdogs and dark horses that are always the key ingredient to an entertaining sports story!
Can’t wait to see the movie? Then pick up the book now on amazon!
Photos: Fame Pictures