Homers' Corner: My First Time Watching Moneyball
Illustration by Jennifer Universe.
The Oakland A’s are my paragon of perseverance in this life. They have continually shown the world of sports that they can compete against all odds, evoking a different kind of identification among us fans: it’s personal when we win, it’s validating. When we’re victorious, I feel it in my soul, profoundly grateful for the nourishment; like rain that may not come again for years. I closely monitored the A’s from afar to cope with homesickness during my fall semester studying abroad at The University of Glasgow, timed perfectly so I’d, unfortunately, miss the theatrical premiere of Moneyball (2011). That same off-season, a new zeitgeist about to happen with both the A’s organization and myself as a fan, and my first time watching Moneyball occurred on the cusp of it.
The trailer for Moneyball was released the summer before I left for my study abroad program, and I was over the moon. Not only was I a film student and chomping at the bit for an Oscar-bait movie with both Brad Pitt and Phillip Seymor Hoffman in the cast, but I’m from a suburb of Oakland. I shortly realized that the film would premiere in the United States a few weeks after my departure, which meant I wouldn’t be able to see it until at least December or January in the UK, and at that point, I would be back home where the movie would be in home-entertainment-limbo. This let down was irritating, but for some reason, I held onto Moneyball like it was a godsend, the next Citizen Kane. While I enjoyed my nights out with friends at our favorite bar Nice N’ Sleazy and weekend trips to the Scottish Highlands, I fixated on Moneyball and the A’s like a crutch for my anxiety while living far from home.
I obsessed over MLB.com news and Youtube clips of behind-the-scenes footage for hours in the mornings before class to assuage my longing. I regularly sat on my university-issued extra-long twin bed curled up in the polyblend floral sheets donning my Coco Crisp t-shirt, my cinderblock-heavy Dell laptop beside me on its loudest volume, blasting the Moneyball trailer. Brad Pitt’s catchy dialogue and luminescent bars from the soundtrack’s post-rock anthem, “The Mighty Rio Grande” were as omnipresent as the clicks from my radiator.
I became cultish in following the A’s organization’s off-season moves, which were far from blockbusters. I’d refresh the OaklandAthletics.com homepage religiously, waiting for news about Gio Gonzalez and some randoms we got from the Diamondbacks. I began digging into our minor league franchises’ players to pan for pieces of gold in the extensive system, just to feel closer to the action, and confirm my bias that we were making the right decisions.
I regularly posted on Tumblr about my findings within A’s internet land. This included Moneyball memes, sabermetrics infographics, and vintage photographs of Rollie Fingers and Jose Canseco from the 1970s and 1980s. I interacted with any possible avenues where I could find Oakland A’s related media. This fandom thing was new. I had never been inspired like this, and really only caught a game on television if I was visiting my parents and my dad had it on as background noise.
Perhaps it was the homesickness combined with a yearning to see Hollywood provide a problem-plagued organization with credibility, or maybe a dissatisfaction with Glasgow, but my obsession was filling a void, which could only be resolved by finally seeing Moneyball.
When mid-December came, my program in Glasgow ended. I was sad to leave, but I returned to my hometown suburb in the East Bay, and my fantasy-filled mind was overflowing with factoids about the upcoming season with a persistent Moneyball itch. I pre-ordered it and waited, my mania exacerbated by further news of Tommy Milone’s progress, the acquisition of Josh Reddick, and a star-less, albeit solid Oakland A’s re-build.
Finally, my Blu-Ray arrived, and I gathered with a few friends to watch. I donned an Athletics t-shirt in the vein of an adolescent fan attending a midnight showing of the latest Harry Potter installment. As soon as the strum of the guitar strings from “The Mighty Rio Grande” opened the film, Brad Pitt sitting in the stands, amidst a darkly lit Oakland Coliseum, I was overcome with profound awe. There was pressure on my heart and droplets of tears moistened my eyes.
It was pure magic to witness a romantic, vivid mise-en-scene featuring the Coliseum, a place that most refer to as a shithole. I knew the story, A’s fans know it too well: Billy Beane, wielding a quiet power, overcomes a perennially deficient budget and an old-school front office mentality to create a winning team. Our small-market status and lack of resources are supplemented with sabermetrics, and we emerge as a serious playoff contender, built from a team of misfits and rejects. All of the stories I followed, and the commentary I read, echoed this same sentiment which made Moneyball all the more impactful for me. By the end of the film, my eyes were red and wet from the story’s gravity: the serious treatment and respect it showed to an often disregarded team.
I think about the A’s now, almost ten years later, and how they continue to endure the stresses of financial instability and talent leaving. We are still at the mercy of teams with giant payrolls, but the validation of seeing our story in a Hollywood film is as rich and beautiful as one of the last lines of the film: “it’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.”
Postscript:
When I cultivated my A’s fandom during my time in Glasgow, Moneyball was a vague light at the end of a tunnel, a notion I didn’t think would inspire a newfound devotion to the team. It broke my heart in all the most splendorous ways a moving Hollywood film can. I knew my passion for the team wouldn’t subside, and it still fiercely burns with a new squad, in a new decade. If anything, it sparked a renaissance just in time for the 2012 season: a season where we finally placed first in the division after many years in the abyss.
Hilary Jane Smith is originally from Northern California. A graduate of Chapman University's Film and Media Arts program, she has written cultural and film criticism, as well as fiction, and personal essays for Merry-Go-Round Magazine, Riza Press, and The Bold Italic. She currently resides and works in New York City. Find her on Twitter at @hilaryjanesmith.