Moneyball — The Movie You Need To Watch!

Is this book sitting on your shelf? It's time to read it. If you are too busy with everyday life, you can watch it on Netflix. But first, let me help you out why you should watch it.

A movie about baseball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Lots of men are fighting about innovation. At first, it might sound boring, but I promise you will enjoy it. Trust me, it’s not just about baseball. It was a hidden gem for me.

My takeaways

When I was ready with the laundry, I wanted to find an excuse to continue. I stopped for an hour or two, but I kept thinking of how this movie had intelligence. I found another piece of housework to do while I continued to watch Moneyball. This movie was intense, brilliant, and hit home.
Crazy, but it made me cry over a baseball match.
Great movie and great acting. Let me explain why you should watch Moneyball if you haven’t seen it yet.

The movie perfectly points out what clean communication and trust do with a team. It is much easier to be honest with the people you work with, so there is no room for assumptions.

Moneyball shows you that everyone should enjoy the big and small wins. Small wins count just as much as big wins. Winning a season might seem like a big win, but winning one game with a new technique goes a long way.
Eventually, being brave leads them to change the game. So, what is even a small win? I love how they play with a definition of what is big and what is small. It helps you put your small and big wins in perspective.

Especially a great movie to watch if you -or someone you know- recently lost your job. I’m not saying you should learn from Billy how to lay off people, but no one should fire someone without empathy. He gives a sterling example of how not to do the firing part.

This movie reminded me to make memories. Give ourselves a shot of dopamine. We all need good vibes to thrive.

Warnings: please be prepared for the last fifteen minutes of Moneyball.

The director put a lot of tension in the end, and it’s very exciting.

It’s not a movie about baseball. It’s a movie about team play and trust.

In the movie, you can even see how a new approach takes over. I believe change is never appreciated enough. Which is okay, no one likes changes. Changes are scary.

Also, it’s an excellent movie to learn about team dynamics and how failure can contribute to trying out new ways of doing. As I mentioned before, it’s about trust.

Billy Bean’s character gives this movie a special boost. His ultimate career decision reflects his down-to-earth personality. We have a lot to learn from him. We need more people like Billy Bean.

If you want to find out what Industrial-Organizational Psychologists are doing, say no more. Thank you for this information to Jamie Burik.

What is the movie about in a nutshell?

Moneyball is a 2011 American biographical sports dramedy film directed by Bennett Miller, and the screenwriters are Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The film draws its basis from Michael Lewis’s 2003 book, “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”

Brad Pitt is portraying Billy Beane, the general manager of the Athletics. The movie slowly shows us how Billy was set for success for the New York Mets at the beginning of his career. He had a bad start as an MLB player and failed. 
This failure drives him to be a general manager, and he is great at his job, but he seems like he never really processed how to cope with failure.

Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand, the mastermind of the analytics approach from Yale. By the way, Peter Brands’ real name is Paul DePodesta, and he actually graduated from Harvard. Paul wanted to change his name in the movie since he didn’t want to relive the media attention. He gave an interview about the movie here.

Peter had never played baseball in his life. He is thinking out of the box when pointing out to hire players by focusing on different key performances in players than veteran managers usually do. He sees potential in the undervalued players. Peter knows that he is about to change the game.

Of course, there are people who don’t believe in this new theory and do everything to prevent the change. The main antagonist in this movie is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe. Art Howe is the team manager who doesn’t believe in new theories. It’s a war between intuition and statistics, and Art is a tough fighter. He doesn’t like numbers, I guess.

Blame Netflix

I’m not a fan of baseball or sports movies, but the algorithm kept pushing this movie to me. I wanted to prove Netflix wrong. Since the laundry basket was full, I gave it a chance.

So, I started to load the washing machine while I kept my eye on the movie. It was a very pleasant feeling to combine chores with pleasure. Also, the algorithm will stop saying that I will like Moneyball because I definitely won’t. I know myself better than a machine. And here we are, now I have to question this proposition.

So, this is how I gave a chance to the film that I had doomed from the beginning

The washing machine was almost full when I realised that I had started to enjoy the movie. The combination of intelligent dialogue and the long pauses made the movie outstanding. The group dynamics were something that I could relate to (I pat myself on the back for being so diplomatic), and some movie scenes are still in my head.

When I was ready with the laundry, I wanted to find an excuse to continue.

I stopped for an hour or two, but I kept thinking about the movie.

I found another piece of housework to do while I continued to watch Moneyball.

Enjoy the movie!

Thanks for reading me!

The Witty Witch