Former Oakland Athletics manager Art Howe (above, right) hasn’t seen ‘Moneyball’ yet, but he’s talked with people who have and he says he isn’t thrilled with the way he’s portrayed in the film.
Here’s Howe on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio:
“Considering the book wasn’t real favorable to me to start with I figured it would be something like this but to be honest with you 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.
Art Howe isn’t happy about his portrayal in ‘Moneyball’“They never called me to get my slant on things as far as the movie was concerned. So, I mean, it’s coming from someone. I don’t know who it is but maybe it is Hollywood to make it sell, I guess. I don’t know. It’s disappointing. I spent my whole career trying to build a good reputation and I think I did that but this movie certainly doesn’t help it. And it is definitely unfair and untrue. If you ask any player that ever played for me they would say that they never saw this side of me, ever.”
...But Howe doesn’t see it quite the same way.
“The thing that bothers me about the movie is that, you know, I think everybody in baseball knows who I am but so many people who are going to be seeing this movie really don’t know me. This is their impression of me probably the rest of my life so that’s disappointing.”
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1. Tricky Dick Posted: September 25, 2011 at 05:15 PM (#3935655)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.
Personally, I thought Howe battled out there.
(EDIT: Whoops, Repoz beat me to it. Ehh. Leaving it.)
But Ed Harris would have been a good choice, and he's also an excellent actor.
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.
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.
To be fair, Leyland is 150 years old.
Umm...Posnanski is crazy. The guy is a very good match for a young baseball playing Pitt.
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?
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.
Yes, that is still true.
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.
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 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.
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