Benny Jay: Moneyball

As part of my effort to keep you up to date on all the hip, new movies coming out of Hollywood, I’m reviewing Moneyball.

I know — it came out months ago.  And by now, pretty much everyone’s seen it.

I was going to see it earlier, but stuff kept coming up. And I didn’t get around to seeing it until last weekend, which means I’m only writing about it now….

Sorry, my bad.

Anyway, great flick. Go see it — again!

As everyone knows, Brad Pitt plays the super-cool, super-smart boss of the Oakland A’s who puts together a super-great team that wins a bunch of games.

That’s pretty much all you need to know about Moneyball.  Oh, yeah — and Jonah Hill plays Brad’s sidekick.

The movie’s so good I was nervously rooting for the A’s to win even though I’d rooted against them back in 2002 when all the stuff was actually going on.

For the record, I can’t stand the A’s almost as much as I can’t stand the Packers on account of how they beat my beloved White Sox in the 1970s.

Speaking of which….

I love Dick Allen!

Sorry, got carried away….

Dick Allen was my favorite White Sox….

 

Anyway, Moneyball also brought back memories of the time I assembled a T-ball team for my kindergarten-aged daughter.

Yes, it’s true — I was a baseball coach. God help us all.

It was a co-ed league, though most of the players were boys. And I wanted my daughter to have some girls to be with.  So….

All the coaches — a bunch of flatulent middle-aged men — gathered in the basement of a Park District field house with computer printouts of the names of the kids who’d signed up to play.

And while the other coaches took boys, I chose players with names like Hannah, Alexis, Chloe and Alexandria. You know, figuring that with names like that they had to be girls.

As you can see, Brad Pitt’s not the only smart guy in baseball.

When the drafting was done, another coach — who we will call Steve Davis, cause that’s his name — walked over and said: “What are you doing?”

“Picking girls to play on my daughter’s team,” I said.

“But why pick them first?”

“Cause I want to make sure the other coaches don’t pick them first….”

“Are you a moron? No other coach wants them. You could have picked the good players with your top choices and the girls with your last choices.

Jonah Hill can play Steve in the movie….

 

That’s when it hit me. If this was like choosing sides in gym class, I’d just picked the nerdy kids first.

Oops.

“What a loser,” said Steve, who, as you can see, has always been a sensitive and compassionate kind of guy.

Sure enough. Steve’s team won the T-ball championship. And my team lost every game we played except for one.

But what a win that was.

You guessed it — we beat Steve’s team!

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Still don’t know how it happened. But it did!

I have a vague memory of Steve, standing at home plate, beet red in the hot sun, bellowing at his kindergarten superstars: “How can you lose to a bunch of girls!”

Heh, heh, heh….

Every time I see Steve I remind him of that game. In fact, feel free to remind him of the game yourself,  should you ever see him.

You know, I think they could make a movie about it. Call it Bennyball. Jonah Hill would play Steve.  And Brad Pitt would play me.

Of course, with my new, super-cool glasses, I could always play myself….

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