Moneyball

Justin and I went to the movie Moneyball this weekend.  To sum it up perfectly I'll tell you what Justin told his great friend and former partner in the battery in college baseball; it is a baseball nerd movie.  Yep.  We're baseball nerds.  We're sports nerds in general.  Justin is particularly fond of baseball and can tell you all kinds of ridiculous information.  I follow it very closely, too, but don't quite have the encyclopedia of knowledge that Justin has.  Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the movie, too. 

It is actually kind of funny to me to think of the term "baseball nerd".  We have many friends who are engineers and technology masterminds.  Most of the time, in good nature, we refer to them as nerds.  I can't say I've ever really used the term in reference to baseball.  But, I got to thinking about it and it really fits.  I know a lot of things about baseball that the average person doesn't.  They know a lot of things about technology that the average person doesn't.  Justin and I are by far and away the biggest sports nerds in our circle of friends and that is okay.  It is our interest/hobby/past time.  It is what we enjoy.  Everyone has something they enjoy and for us it is pretty much anything sports related.  Which is why I knew the answer to "What does NASCAR stand for?" in a game we played this weekend with friends, but that is another story.

Back to the movie.  Moneyball is the story of the Oakland Athletics Major League Baseball team.  The A's are a small market team.  In other words, they don't have a lot of money, especially compared to teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.  They are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to acquiring the superstar players worth the big bucks.  They simply can't afford them.  So, a member of the A's front office came up with a system based on statistics to determine which players get on base the most and produce the most runs at the lowest price for the team.  It was quite the numbers game.  But, it worked for them.  When they initially made the switch of type of player on their team, it was not well received and they lost a lot.  But, they turned it around mid-season and were quite successful.

It was a good story, had some great humor, and was an excellent movie for any 'baseball nerds' out there.  Justin and I really enjoyed it and our night out alone!  If you like sports, I think you would really like this movie.  If you don't, you actually would probably have a hard time understanding it all.  But that's okay because you probably have an interest in something I don't understand and I celebrate that difference!