Book 2 Project: Comparing to the Movie

 

            The novel Moneyball is a true story in which a MLB general manager, Billy Beane, changes the entire process of selecting players to play on his team. Moneyball is a very strange book in the way that it mostly had to deal with statistics and the business aspect of the game of baseball rather than the game itself. In comparison to many other action packed sports books this one was very different. I was curious to see how the book would compare to the movie, which came out in 2011.

            When Moneyball opened in theaters, September of 2011, it climbed its way straight to the top of the box office. It grossed over 75 million dollars while it was in theaters. When I finally saw the movie, I really enjoyed it, but just recently after reading the book I don’t understand why it would be made into a movie. Of course there is the great story of how one of the lowest budgeted teams goes on to win twenty straight games setting an American League record, but the book mainly focuses on the business side of the MLB. To make the movie more interesting they clearly needed to add more than what just the book had to offer. In the movie there are several scenes in which Billy Beane and his daughter have meaningful long conversations, giving her a major acting role. In the book they do talk about Billy’s daughter, but never to an extent in which she would play a major role in the movie. On page 246 Billy calls his daughter to ask her simply, “Are you watching the game?” That is pretty much the most they mention Casey Beane in Moneyball, Lewis doesn’t even give her any dialogue in the book. My favorite part of the book was not even included in the movie, which made me upset. I really enjoyed the first fortyish pages because Lewis went into detail about Billy Beane’s childhood and how he had been selected in the first round of the 1988 draft. Reading about Billy’s past changed the way I view the book completely. The book basically described him as a legend of California high school baseball. I think the movie could have been a lot better if it included at least some of the scenes Lewis describes in the book. The movie did do a good job of showing the setting. I pictured exactly what the scouting room looked like in the movie while reading. The movie really didn’t give the book any justice however on the statistical and business aspect parts. I understand the movie would have been really boring if it was just about stats and business in the MLB, but the amount of time spent explaining the process, the number of players scouted, and how interpret the right stats for a player was a majority of the book. The Movie needed to at least explain that a little better.  

            Overall however, I feel that the movie was a fairly good interpretation of the book. Moneyball had to definitely be one of the hardest books to make into a movie. Although the movie was missing some of my favorite scenes, added character plot lines, and missed out on really showing the business aspect of baseball I really did enjoy the movie. They are pretty different, but I enjoy both the book and the movie.