Moneyball Shut Out at Oscars, Joe Morgan Pleased

On Sunday night, the 84th Annual Academy Awards took place in Hollywood California where all the biggest stars live and spend time. Big stars like Burt Reynolds and Kirstie Alley and Dustin Diamond. At said Academy Awards, the baseball film Moneyball was nominated to win a grand total of six categories, and took home zero trophies. One could even say that Moneyball was, in fact, “shut out” from the awards. “Shut out” being a popular baseball term used when a team is unable to score a single run in a contest. I’m probably the first person to recognize and employ this device—it’s creative innovation like this that has me on the vanguard of online baseball writing, you guys. It’s long been established that Billy Beane’s sh** doesn’t work in the playoffs, so this lack of winning comes as little surprise to those of us who have been paying attention and seeing through the hype. However, many fans of the sport of baseball and good art created through inspiration from it were justified in feeling at least a small bit of disappointment given the results. At least one notable gentleman taking exception to these emotions is of course our good friend and former Sunday Night Baseball antagonist Joe Morgan. A long time skeptic and opponent to the ideas set forth in Moneyball, Morgan also abstained from pulling any punches on the topic of the film. Some days before the awards ceremony, he was overheard saying:

"I saw the trailer before a screening of Jack and Jill. It’s typical if you write a movie script, you want to be the hero. That is apparently what Beane has done. According to what I saw in the preview, Beane is smarter and better looking than anyone else. I don’t think it will make him popular with the other GMs or the other people in baseball."

You have to admire Morgan’s candor, and persistence. Despite not seeing the film in its entirety as to properly asses its merits, and despite the fact that many “Moneyball” philosophies and ideals serve to make Joe Morgan the baseball player look even more impressive and historic in retrospect, the man sticks to his guns—staying true to the fundamental truths of baseball as he knows them from having played and watched the actual game. Live and in real time. Mr. Morgan’s head has never been discovered buried in any stat sheet, that’s for certain. When pressed a bit more on his thoughts about the film (trailer), Morgan did admit that the Art Howe character “looked like a good one,” and “will probably be ignored by the fancy pants front office types” in the movie. He commented that Brad Pitt “would have probably made one hell of a ballplayer. Good face, and a nice looking girlfriend.” In parting, Morgan mentioned that he was flabbergasted by “how much weight that fat kid has lost since filming,” turning around to add, “I mean, seriously, have you seen him lately? Unbelievable.”

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Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.