I just commented in the "review" thread that I had mixed feelings about the portrayal of Howe because I liked Howe as a player and, as a baseball professional he seemed like a decent guy. (As a manager, I think he is just OK, but rather non-descript.) I think this is partly a case that the movie needs a foil for Beane, and Howe is a convenient character for that. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Hollywood exaggerated the negative aspects of his character.

This version of Moneyball made me wonder how Soderbergh version of the movie would have treated the Howe character. Howe was going to play himself in that version. Howe is an analyst on Astros' post-game shows, and last year (or the year before that?) he mentioned that he would miss a few home games because he was flying to Arizona to start the filming of moneyball. He said he didn't know what to expect. Shortly thereafter, the news came out that the filming would not start, because the movie was being re-written.

Hoffman is an excellent actor, but he also looks/sounds nothing like Howe (I thought Ed Harris would have made a good Howe), so it seems Howe should have tried to go the DePodesta route and have his character be named "Sparky Thompson" or something.

it is very disappointing to know that you spent seven years in an organization and gave your heart and soul to it and helped them go to the postseason your last three years there and win over 100 games your last two seasons and this is the way evidently your boss (Beane) feels about you.

Billy Beane should never have written that screenplay.

Personally, I thought Howe battled out there.

(EDIT: Whoops, Repoz beat me to it. Ehh. Leaving it.)

Hoffman is an excellent actor, but he also looks/sounds nothing like Howe (I thought Ed Harris would have made a good Howe)

Howe *was* skinny when he managed the A's, right? I was surprised that Hoffman looks so big, not like he hasn't been much trimmer in other roles. I think.

But Ed Harris would have been a good choice, and he's also an excellent actor.

@ 4

Yeah. Howe was basically totally bald even when he was a young man, but he is actually a rugged-looking, kind of impressive older guy--like Ed Harris. Physically, Hoffman would seem better suited to the Jonah Hill part, (too old, though) but Hoffman is the kind of guy who can pull off different parts.

FWIW, Rob Neyer said he hated Hoffman's portrayal of Howe. Not only was it largely fictional, but he said he couldn't get over how totally unathletic Hoffman looks, basically nothing like somebody who would have played baseball. Neyer's a big movie buff so he's not just talking as a baseball fan.

Couldn't they at least have added a scene at the end where Art Howe sacrifices his life by taking an experimental but risky serum that will one day help generations of children? That's how Babe Bendix got to go.

FWIW, Rob Neyer said he hated Hoffman's portrayal of Howe. Not only was it largely fictional, but he said he couldn't get over how totally unathletic Hoffman looks, basically nothing like somebody who would have played baseball.

That's a pretty stupid criticism. Has he seen some of the guys that come rolling out of dugouts?

Even if the argument isn't that Hoffman should be lean and spry to appear athletic, and that there is still an athletic "look" to the frumpier managers of the day, I disagree. I am not able to look at Charlie Manuel and see the former athlete within. Same with a bunch of other guys.

Posnanski observed that the actor playing a "young" Billy Beane shared zero resemblance to Pitt.

. Has he seen some of the guys that come rolling out of dugouts?

To be fair, Leyland is 150 years old.

Posnanski observed that the actor playing a "young" Billy Beane shared zero resemblance to Pitt.

Umm...Posnanski is crazy. The guy is a very good match for a young baseball playing Pitt.

For crying out loud, DUSTIN Hoffman would have been a better choice to portray Howe.

I have not seen the movie, but if Beane thought so little of Howe, why did he employ him for seven seasons? Isn't that more of an indictment of Beane than it is Howe?

I think it's an indication of how unimportant Beane thought the manager was.

Posnanski observed that the actor playing a "young" Billy Beane shared zero resemblance to Pitt.

True. I had a hard time with it. The young Beane looked very much like the man. Pitt, of course, doesn't (got the hair close, but that was it). But, the gap between young and old Beane in the flick wasn't very good.

There was some other stuff.... The DePo character played by Hill says to Beane in a scene that reminded me of All the President's Men (can't talk in the Indians front office so take it out into the parking garage) that the loss of Damon is actually good because the Sox overvalue him. Then, at the end of the flick, they show dialog in which "Red Sox go on to win the World Series in 2004 using the same approach A's did." Huh? Sure, Bill James helped. But to say that the 2004 Red Sox team was built on Moneyball principles is taking it a bit too far. Last I checked, Damon was on that 2004 team.

The fact that Will Ferrell wasn't cast as Adam Dunn is the biggest oversight.

Howe's comments in the article is reflective of his portrayal in the movie. In his comments, Howe seemed to have been more concerned with his reputation and his next job and he was in trying to get with the program, and Hoffman's Howe comes across exactly the same way in the movie.

Last I checked, Damon was on that 2004 team.

Yes, that is still true.

I thought that the Young Beane looked pretty close to what a young Pitt would look like.

Howe wss just interviewed during the Astros' broadcast. Apparently he has watched Moneyball now and he is unhappy. He doesn't like being portrayed as selfish or self-centered. He said he never talked about his contract extension with Beane. He said that he had to break the news to Magnante, not Beane. Etc.

Just to clarify in the post above, Howe said his agent is the only one who discussed contracts with the club.

There was some other stuff.... The DePo character played by Hill says to Beane in a scene that reminded me of All the President's Men (can't talk in the Indians front office so take it out into the parking garage) that the loss of Damon is actually good because the Sox overvalue him. Then, at the end of the flick, they show dialog in which "Red Sox go on to win the World Series in 2004 using the same approach A's did." Huh? Sure, Bill James helped. But to say that the 2004 Red Sox team was built on Moneyball principles is taking it a bit too far. Last I checked, Damon was on that 2004 team.

Having just come from the movie, they didn't say Damon was a bad player (though they didn't say he was great, either) - just he was being paid more than he was worth. And the 2004 Boston championship at the time was very, very widely considered to be an emulation of the Moneyball A's (which back then essentially meant using OBP as the most important stat) - I'd go so far as to say the notion was completely ubiquitous. "Moneyball with money" is what pretty much everyone was saying.

I thought the movie presented Howe as a man with integrity, even if he didn't share the vision with Beane.

I agree with QFtDTA. Howe was portrayed as a principled opponent. I thought Grady Fuson was portrayed as the villain.

Seems that the primary quality the scriptwriters wanted to portray in the Howe character was passive-aggressiveness. Perhaps Sorkin and Zaillian, a couple of Robert McKee acolytes, sensed the lack of such a force in their film, and put it all into Howe.

What the film doesn't convey at all, of course, is that Howe was actually playing Hatteberg at the time of this so-called "tug of war"--he was DH'ing him.

I thought the whole film didn't make sense if you thought too hard about it, the writers lazily stuck in a standard Hollywood plot cause they couldn't figure out how to dramatize what really happened, and Howe got cheap-shotted in it. Obviously the writers are super talented, but they couldn't even give Beane's opponents dignified motives for their intransigence.

I told my wife it was probably a much better film to those who didn't read the book, but she didn't really like it too much either.