UPDATE: The back-and-forth continues! Responding via Twitter, Law writes "Except he didn't trash my review. He trashed me - the standard ad hominem when you can't address the arguments on the table."

This can't end well for anybody.

He trashed me - the standard ad hominem when you can't address the arguments on the table."

, Law writes "Except he didn't trash my review. He trashed me - the standard ad hominem when you can't address the arguments on the table."

If Lewis wants to survive as a serious writer

I've never heard Michael Lewis talk, though I would not be surprised if he had a big ego and is convinced about the infallibility of his ideas.

If Lewis wants to survive as a serious writer, ...

There’s seems to be a fundamental disconnect between the message of the big screen adaptation of Michael Lewis’ non-fiction bestseller Moneyball—which argues that statistical modeling is a more fiscally sound method of assembling baseball teams than searching for “intangibles” and “guys who can play”—and the way the movie is put together. Though Michael Lewis’ book is full of colorful individuals, anchored by Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (played here by Brad Pitt), it ultimately advances a theory that holds that individuals and moments matter less than numbers and aggregates. And yet here’s Moneyball: The Movie, giving us flashbacks to Beane’s disappointing pro baseball career, and inserting humanizing scenes of him hanging out with his pre-teen daughter. Even the way conversations are shot in this movie, with a lot of close-ups and over-the-shoulder, emphasizes people standing on their own, not sharing space with others. (In fact at a certain point I began to wonder if Pitt and Jonah Hill, who plays stat-freak assistant GM Peter Brand, were ever even on set together.) Granted, the fascination with Beane was present in Lewis’ book as well, and I do believe that director Bennett Miller—working from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin—always intended to raise some questions about whether the magic of the game can be reduced to a spreadsheet. But the movie is also structured in a way to give Beane’s A’s some measure of triumph, even though they flopped in the playoffs (which most old-school baseball folks would register as failure). All of that said, Moneyball is still highly entertaining, especially for ballfans. Miller uses a lot of real (or at least real-looking) people, and gets the businesslike atmosphere of modern sports in a way that doesn’t disregard the fun of it all. It’s also a treat to remember the MLB of the early ‘00s: the big and small names, the top teams, etc. I wish Pitt brought a little more swagger to his role, but when he and Hill are preaching the doctrine of OBP over “fundamentals,” Moneyball gives new meaning to the term “inside baseball.”

14, I am a huge Michael Lewis fan, ...

All of that said, Moneyball is still highly entertaining, especially for ballfans

Jonah Hill, who plays stat-freak assistant GM Peter Brand

Law rubs elbows with scouts now and depends on them as sources, so maybe his review is more about gaining some cred with them than reviewing a movie.

but it seems as if KLaw has evolved his views on scouts and Lewis... hasn't / doesn't care.

In his review, Law comes down hard on what the film cites as “Bill James bullsh-t” (James was the father of sabermetrics, the statical engine that drove Beane during the time period depicted in ‘Moneyball’), but Lewis says that wasn’t always the case.

I’ll confess to laughing at the scout referring to “this Bill James ########,” although the A’s bought into that ######## years before the film claims they did - and, in fact, hired Paul Depodesta three years before the movie-A’s hired Brand.

Check back to Moviefone next week for more with author Michael Lewis about ‘Moneyball.’ The film hits theaters on Sept. 23.

but it seems as if KLaw has evolved his views on scouts ...

Many in the stathead community have embraced the "beer and tacos" philosophy, the idea that both statistical analysis and traditional scouting have their place. Lewis, in his book, seemed (to me) to make this a much more binary, one or the other battle, and it appears Law's criticisms of the movie are along those same lines.

Many in the stathead community have embraced the "beer and tacos" philosophy, the idea that both statistical analysis and traditional scouting have their place. Lewis, in his book, seemed (to me) to make this a much more binary, one or the other battle, and it appears Law's criticisms of the movie are along those same lines.

If Lewis wants to survive as a serious writer,

I don't really agree.

Agree with NTNgod - if Moneyball seems dated, it's because it accurately reflected the attitude of the times.

38. living legend Posted:

These f****** numbers crunchers have destroyed baseball. I wonder if this idiot advised Riccardi to sign both Vernon Wells and Alex Rios to those huge contracts that ultimately cost Riccardi his job. I guess the numbers did not add up.

Yes, how dare Keith learn and grow as a person while you, Michael Lewis, stay absolutely perfectly the same as you were when you wrote the book.

For starters, the lampooning of scouts, which draws from the book, isn’t any more welcome on screen (where some of the scouts are played by actual scouts) than it was on the page; they are set up as dim-witted bowling pins for Beane and Brand to knock down with their spreadsheets. It’s cheap writing, and unfair to the real people being depicted.

As to Law's contention that Lewis's arguments are ad hominems, he may have a point.

Law doesn't, in his review, condemn the "Bill James bullspit"...his critiques on the baseball side are mostly about the movie portraying real people as "dim-witted bowling pins," much as the book did.

This feels like a variation of the stupid "stats vs scout" debate that never really existed.