Penguins can't fly! PENGUINS CAN'T FLY!

Was there a scene with an empty chair?

Was there a scene with an empty chair?

No, but there is a scene where Billy Beane throws the President of the United States across the room.

Reading the spoilers, because I don't care to ever see this movie, I want to live in a world where the baseball part of the ending happens. That would be comically amazing.

I'm having trouble believe that Matthew Lillard wasn't able to offer a subtle, nuanced performance.

This movie sounds awesome. I'm renting this baby the first chance I get.

Thank you, #3.

Billy Beane should never have made that convention speech.

You mean to say that if we somehow merged "Moneyball" with "Trouble With The Curve," we might get "The Mike Rizzo Story"?

Oh, god, I want this guy so bad. Maybe if the Red Sox take him, we can work out a draft-and-trade deal.

That's absurd. I don't see the phrase 'overrated reliever' anywhere near that sentence.

Timberlake is furious, saying "It's over for me!" because … well, I'm not sure. The Red Sox took another player with the #1 pick, and I guess the hot prospect Timberlake was scouting needed to slide to #155 for him to look good. He thinks Eastwood and Adams conspired against him.

To be fair to the Movie on this point, Timberlake told the Sawx not to take the kid because Eastwood told him the kid sux, Eastwood also told him that the Braves wouldn't be taking him - so of course Timberlake tells the Sawx that, they pass and the Braves take the kid... So yes, it would certainly look to a neutral observer like Timberlake got taken.

The "hot" prospect is played as a selfish egotistical jerk, a complete one note role, I think it's based upon some negative reporting regarding Bryce Harper's makeup prior to that draft...

One problem (among many) is that you have a posse of scouts trailing this kid, but it doesn't look like any of them ever try to, you know, get to know him, talk with him, his friends, his family... What's really odd is that the movies simultaneously points out that scouts do try to get and know the guys they're scouting- that was the basis for Eastwood's and Timberlake's relationship, pl;us it was the basis of a minor plot thread regarding a failing prospect who'd been scouted by Eastwood.

I don't understand why they wouldn't make the hotshot prospect a fat Jeremy Brown-type in college. No one cares about HS stats.

I don't understand why they wouldn't make the hotshot prospect a fat Jeremy Brown-type in college. No one cares about HS stats.

I think the prospect was supposed to be a mash-up of Brown and Bryce Harper...

But yeah, no one pays attention to HS stats, I assume every HS hitter drafted batted .450+ and the pitchers are drafted mostly on MPH anyway...

How could you draft a HS guy on stats?
1: Sample size- worse than college
2: Quality of competition, probably more variable than college
3: park factors- ludicrously variable- I mean you have parks with no fences- no grass, crab grass and bushes, rocks...
4: umpiring- again ludicrously variable

absolutely ludicrous, there is no way, there is no way a stathead would suggest it either (well I'd hope not)

Keith Law also watched the movie so you don't have to:

Klawview

Maybe the biggest error of all is the idea that nine days before the draft, Atlanta’s area scout (Gus) hasn’t seen the player in his area who’s a candidate for the second overall pick – and no one else in the organization has seen him either. That player would have been seen more than a dozen times by the area guy, every regional and national cross-checker, and the scouting director (an underutilized John Goodman), and possibly by a front-office exec or two since the player is within driving distance of Atlanta. The idea that this huge pick is hinging on one look less than two weeks before the draft is necessary to feed into the film’s mythologizing of old scouts, but in fact, it’s insulting to scouts of all ages by making their process seem more whimsical and less methodical.

I don't understand why they wouldn't make the hotshot prospect a fat Jeremy Brown-type in college.

They don't think that we're smart enough to notice, or that we're interested enough to care even if we pick up on it.

Shaggy?!?