Nathan Goldman
Moneyball’s Cultural Significance
Introduction
Moneyball is undoubtedly one of the most influential sports movies of all time.
The Hollywood screenplay originated from actual events that took place in Major
League Baseball by one of the sport’s biggest underdogs. Despite facing an incredibly traditionalized system and extreme financial obstacles, the Oakland Athletics were able to spark a change in Baseball's culture by dominating on the Diamond. Adopting a business model that focused on statistical evidence when evaluating players helped eliminate unnecessary expectations of dominant traditionalist culture in professional baseball Winning games is the bottom line in Major League Baseball. Once Oakland was able to prove they could win with this new strategy other organizations took notice.
An ethics and behavior study produced by Joe Solberg, and Richard Ringer claims:
“professional sports—is characterized by values that strongly prioritize winning over fair play” (Solberg, Ringer) Fair play was clearly lacking in mainstream roster assembly strategies before Oaklands cultural resistance captured in the movie. The Visual measurement of athletic ability was a theme embodied by Baseball scouts that became responsible for overlooking potential players. A preconceived set of standards measuring an athletic appearance, tends to disregard players possessing unique skill sets valuable to a teams winning potential. Obviously, culture shifts happen in many different fields of organizational management, but it's unanimously uncertain why and how they occur. Communication scholars would definitely be intrigued in locating what this process may look like through the framework of Moneyball’s cinema production.
Author’s Dawinder, and Sidhu illustrate a relatable conceptualization of the cultural shift displayed in Moneyball. They argue that Moneyball has broken the conventional approach of how professional Baseball teams decide an individual's potential on field performance. (Sidhu, Dawinder, 671) For the purpose of this research investigation, a concise motive is formulated to directly address the established question. This essay will primarily focus on investigating the hegemonic traditionalism resisting Oaklands management present in Moneyball’s 2011 Cinema production.
Hegemony is a theoretical concept composed by Antonio Gramsci justify dominant cultures ideological control of cultural normalities. The University of
Pennsylvania Press describes: “Not that ideas were powerful enough to eliminate class struggle, but they were obviously capable of muting it sufficiently to allow class societies to function” (Bates, 351) This interpretation of Gramsci’s theory is extremely relatable to the way baseballs traditionalist culture remains in power. Throughout the duration of this section, there are intentions to unpack how these norms are perceived within Baseball culture. Acknowledging the realization of this persistently anti-progressive theme in the sport is key before starting a theoretical analysis. A player's ability to display ones self according to a unanimously understood representation of looking like a baseball player is necessary for professional baseball. Moneyball dramatically demonstrates this illusion of Baseball's traditionalist presence dominating the sports systematic managerial strategic ideology. An emphasis on the old school systems generational success is utilized throughout the fim to oppose this new wave of thinking embodied among the
Athletics General Manager Billy Beane, and his assistant Peter Brand. Knowing about the generationally relentless efforts of traditionalists cultures opposition to pregssive ideologies is critical knowledge for understanding the films references among various characters.
The next objective of this contextual framework is to compare similar elements of the Moneyball story to cultural transformations that took place at Netflix. The company decided to abandon the widespread strategy of selecting their featured movies and T.V shows by critic reviews, public popularity. Instated Netflix implemented a complex system of data collection based on various patterns of viewer interest. A scholarly case study on the company's data collection claims:“Netflix has established a business model that places the user at the core of its decisions” (Manzano, et.al) Ultimately, success altered the dominant methodology for streaming service marketing. This shift in the presence of dominant culture provides a relatable reference of organizational evolution to the context of Moneybsll’s script. After providing key background information about the values of baseball culture needed to understand the context of Moneyball, origins behind the popularized statistical theory utilized in the movie will be discussed. In 2003
Author Michel Lewis composed a nonfiction narrative book to capture events that took place during the Athletics 2002 season. In so doing, Lewis was effectively able to popularize the phenomenon among the general public. Moneyball in the ERA of
Biometrics justifies Lewis’s influential novel.“the 2003 release of Michael Lewis’s best seller, Moneyball, after which the practice was popularized and began to become legitimized by league executives across MLB” (Casher, 4) components of his popularized book gave the Athletics a source to credit their ideologies formulation. The unified access of Lewis’s published text meant that anyone could emulate the Athletics process with a personal touch from their specific organization. If Oakland could obtain drastic winning improvement with such a miniscule budget, other teams with more financial capabilities believe they can create a better version of this potential information. Eventually, Hollywood began to notice the radical ideologies' cultural transformation into a dominant presence in Major League Baseball.
Description/Context
Baseball Cultures Tradition
Hollywood's take on the Moneyball phenomenon utilizes the stout foundation of actual events to create an entertaining big screen production. Exaggerating the conflict between Billy Beane and baseball traditionalists within the Athletics organization is acceptable, because it effectively presents a unified representation of the protagonist and antagonist ideological perspectives. Media History scholar Peter Miskell describes how hollywood movies are viewed on a global scale as a key representation of the
United States hegemonic ideologies in society. (Miskell, 174)As previously stated, this
Analysis plans to focus on investigating the hegemonic traditionalism resisting Oaklands management present in Moneyball’s 2011 Cinema production.
Baseball’s Hegemonic Traditionalists tend to have an identifiable ideological confirmation within the sports culture. Visual generalities are a common method of reasoning behind the evaluation of talent. Traditionalists seem to believe that a player's appearance can affect on field contributions to an organization's roster. No Dummies is a particular article that characterizes the nature of this identifiable physical judgment in pro baseball. At one point in the text, a claim is made that the first two deaf players in Major League Baseball are remembered as heroes in both the hearing abled public and the deaf community (Edwards, 184) His dual description of both a underrepresented group, and the general public that the first teo Dodgers Broadcast Announcer Joe
Simpson was documented on live television stating: “What do you see? T-shirts. You see Chase Utley with no socks and pants up over his knees, and a T-shirt…and I think about fans that come to SunTrust Park who are Dodgers fans and want to see their players.” (Joe Sampson) This ridiculous critique was in response to Dodgers veteran player Chase Utley wearing a t-shirt during pre-game batting practice. During the time of this statement, it's unclear if Simpson knew Utley's shirt was supporting a Cancer relief movement. Of course these comments were met with severe outrage from the progressive minded voices that are now present in Baseball culture. Simpson is a radical example of the “traditionalist perspective” that has attempted to police the game for generations. He invokes an unwritten rule such as dressing in uniform during pregame warmups, which is a prime example of an unnecessary expectation the
Oakland Athletics management was trying to disregard. Age, Appearance, and personality often camouflaged traits that could be used as an asset on a winning team.
Eventually this mathematical mindset resulted in a chain reaction of other Professional
Baseball teams following the same principles associated with the newfound theory.
Market Watch describes: “Since the analytical revolution, everyone in baseball now knows that lefty pitchers can more easily retire lefty batters.” (Edwin Amenta, 2019) The important takeaway from this statement is to recognize how mathematical implications have become internalized into the execution of the game’s strategy. Possessing statistical knowledge is now considered essential in developing a competitive edge, and this movie depicts how that shift was initiated.
When Moneyball was released in 2011, this transformational process in baseball culture became relevant among the general public, not just among baseball teams and their fans. However, professional baseball teams were conducting this statistically embedded culture years before the Hollywood films release. The dual combination of academy award winning actors Brad Pitt, and Jonah Hill fulfill the movie's entertainment credibility regardless of its plotline. Billy Bean is the Athletics General Manager represented by Brad Pitt in the cast. “Brad Pitt is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winner known for such films as 'Legends of the Fall,' 'Fight Club,' 'The Curious Case of
Benjamin Button,' 'Moneyball,'...” (A&E Television Networks, 2018) Pitt’s successful career was heavily influenced by his award-winning acting in Moneyball. Jonah Hill's role of the General Managers Assistant is also critical for the movie to display the brains behind the statistical evidence. Jonah’s character Pual DePodesta is shown as a intellectual genius, with a Masters in Economics from Yale. Peter is the name assigned for DePodestas character in the film. (Glaeser, Sustain, 2) Regardless of these impressive accolades, Peter had never competed in any form of organized baseball.
This lack of personal familiarity was viewed negatively by baseball traditionalists, because it's an unofficial trait necessary for an educated baseball enthusiast in an organization's leadership role. An ideal scout or player evaluator prior to the Moneyball era can be described as: “guy who sizes up the young prospect playing high-school or college ball, gets to know him away from the diamond, and draws on many years of experience hanging out with professional ballplayers ….” (Louis Menand, 2019)
Moneyballs Culture Shift in a Broader Context
On a broader scale, Major League Baseball is not the only business setting to undergo a similar culture shift. At one point Netflix embodied a relatable strategy to that of the Oakland Athletics management. Netflix has not always been a financially successful organization compared to its competitors. After failing to obtain anticipated profit margins, the company decided to reconstruct their entire business model. CEO
Reed Hastings explained: “We don’t and can’t compete on breadth with Comcast, Sky,
Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or Google. For us to be hugely successful we have to be a focused passion brand.” (Harvard Business Review, 2019) Netflix knew it drastically lacked the resources to attract enough customers for maintaining the sole effort on video distribution. Instead, producing original entertainment content would mark their organizations presence in new territory of the Home Movie Culture'. At the early stages of this new business model, Netflix experienced little success among popular culture, because it went against the normalities of cultural acceptance. A company lacking traditional credibility creating content that is enjoyed by a mass number of individuals was unheard of in the cinema industry. Digital Uncovered states:
“Netflix is trying to redefine the long established Hollywood model that depends on a system of showcasing a movie in theaters followed months later by the release of a
DVD or a download” (Sorriaj Divakaran).
This fresh new perspective brought a significant measure of investment growth as time progressed. Management also proposed a statistical approach for categorizing their products’ popularity among the fanbase. Keeping records of a viewer's previously watched T.V Shows, and Movies, allows for Netflix to suggest new content titles. This analytically driven cultural movement builds these suggestions on interpellated audience interests. Evidence confirms that “Netflix regularly analyses, segments and compares the swathes of data….” (Digital Uncovered) The overriding importance of statistical information is an amicable comparison to the event illustrated in Moneyball.
Moneyballs influence has forever changed the overall business of professional sports. In the years leading up to, and following the movie’s Hollywood success, other popular sports attempted to replicate a similar process. Gaining a critically undervalued statistical advantage over competition is an extremely common theme. An example from the NFL includes the “work of the Cleveland Browns and, more specifically, the influence of Paul DePodesta that helped to bring the analysis method of recruitment to football in the NFL.” (PFN Staff, 2020) This modern day relevance of a moneyball variation in America's most popular sport, truly displays the cultural milestone achieved by Oakland’s management. The historically uncompetitive culture present in the
Cleveland Browns Organization, also provides a familiar background of existing negative culture.
Initial Conclusions
After conducting initial background research about the cultural shift displayed in
Moneyball, various predictions can be formulated to address the primary research objective. This essay will primarily focus on investigating the hegemonic traditionalism resisting Oaklands management present in Moneyball’s 2011 Cinema production. The elimination of culturally constructed deficiencies such as age, class, and personality allows for employee evaluations on an equal playing field. Moneyball’s ability to simplify this evaluation process represents an altercation of dominant culture.Billy Beane is shown to be the catalyst force behind the events popularity. Yet, despite this currently described hypothesis, the exact limitations of the Moneyball phenomenon is still unclear.
Literature Review Introduction
“Tradition” has always been a thematic presence within baseball cultures' historical
context. The same oldschool style of player evaluation has existed for multiple
generational cycles. Physical appearance, and personality have overlooked the potential on field talent of many players in the eyes of management positions. According
to A Good Baseball Club is a Splendid Advertisement to a Town: “Baseball and
nineteenth-century industrial capitalism went hand-in-hand as,” (Howard) Baseball
traditionalists believe a team should consist of individuals that look and act like proper
baseball players, because it's necessary to win games. Fortunately, this common
misconception was challenged by events captured in the popularized “Moneyball” film.
The 2011 production was formulated to capture events that took place within the
Oakland Athletics organization in 2002. General Manager Billy Beane proposed a shift
in evaluative thinking that favored heavy statistical value to predict winning. Despite winning 101 games in 2001(Pisano,53), Oaklands roster lost several key free agents to
opposing teams with increased financial capabilities. The 2011 fim effectively displays
the ideological turning point in Billy’s mindset of valuing players. He knows that their current plan will never allow them to realistically have a shot at winning a championship.
It turns out his intuition was right, Oakland went on to post an incredible 20 game winning streak in the first season of this ideological altercation. (Paterson, 34)
Regardless of this impressive statistic, Billy Beane’s theoretical proposition was met with intense opposition from Baseball traditionalists. Events in the Hollywood film show
how the Oakland front office is able to turn widespread criticism into a prazied phenomenon. After witnessing the Athletics success in 2002, other organizations began
to adopt similar versions of player management models. (Wolfe, et al., 111)
For the purpose of this essay's argument, a patternized section of academic sources will be discussed in the Literature review. These categories are meant to be organized based on two categories. The first portion will direct its focus towards building the theoretical framework applied to moneyball’s screenplay in my textual analysis further along in the paper. Hegemony, and Doxa are the primary ideologies that will be discussed. An accurate version of hegemony's negative impacts on cultural progress is provided by Robert Cavooris. Within the content of his article Cavooris emphasizes the theoretical concerts historical track record has formulated a consistent keystone of conflict among diferencheating cultural ideas. (Cavooris, 232) Moneyball’s dramaticized screenplay is orsitrated to illustrate a feel good story of cultural abolition from a generationally unfair system. Additionally, before the popularized movie was carried out in real life, resting this generationally robust model of player evaluation was nonexistent.
Following the masses of dominant culture was considered common sense. This ideological appeal to common sense can be labeled as a doxa. The terms functionality is described as: “lived and practical, evident only when ordinary life expressed in symbols and rituals..” (Qadir, 157) Hollywood's representation of the historical event in
Oakland, captures the ordinary ritual of using visual generalities to build a ball team, and why it should not be questioned. Various members within Oaklands organization are unable to understand Billy's reasoning for implementing cultural change during several senses in the film.
The following section of the literature review is going to present specific scholarly articles interested in similar elements of baseball cultures history. An example of a relatable method of research to this investigation is established by The Journal of
Relationship Marketing. “Michael Lewis's book Moneyball made the case that the collective wisdom of baseball insiders can be subjective and often flawed” (Coe, Ai,
155) Although this study is primarily concerned with Michel Lewis’s book instead of the movie, their claim to baseballs problematic culture is valid. Other representations of this discussion will be descriptively introduced in the literature review.
Literature Review
Theoretical framework is an essential component of any effective argument in the literary realm. An investigation of student behavioral patterns describes how Universities are supposed to teach students disciplinary ways of thinking through ideological concepts. (Golding, 478) Hegemony and doxa theory are lenses of framework identifiable in Moneyballs cinema production. Hegemonic identity will be expressed in this section before doxa theory.
Gramsci’s theoretical guidelines of hegemonic culture are routinely studied by literary scholars. A self proclaimed Neo-Gramscian argument describes: “critical theory of hegemony directs attention to questioning the prevailing order of the world.” (Bieler,
Morton, 86) Another perspective of Gramsci’s followers characterizes the intentions of
Hegemony to be: “the question of how different social groups achieve dominance through constructing consent” (Joseph, 179) The general takeaway from both of these quotes is related to dominance vs submission in society. Hegemony effectively exists because of overwhelming attempts to extinguish oppositional ideology. In Moneyballs cinema script, the alarm bells of rationalist thinking begin to ring when Billy Beane makes his manifestation known. Oaklands scouting department , and management roles from opposing teams in the MlB defend their generationally practiced values.
William J Morgan from the university of Tenassee claims that hegemonic alignment always occurs in an unequal playing field.(Morgan,311) This combination of forces facing Billy’s cultural reformation truly seemed like an impossible task within
Hollywood's replication of the event. Systematic liberation becomes a suspensully entertaining process for audience members to watch. Although mankind acknowledges the negative aspects of hegemonic suppression, a mass amount of media content relies on its presence to popularize the storylines conflict. Paul Kohl is an author who supports this statement in his investigation on hegemonic values in music. On page 4 he quotes:
“Music is commodified it is seen as losing its power with the people, and instead becomes part of a greater ideology.” (Kohl, 4) Basically Kohl feels like modern music is subjected to align with dominant cultures systematic values, instead of speaking authentically about a deferenchatning individualized perspective. Moneyball’s cinema portrayal resists hegemonic inequality, however the success from Oaklands 2002 season started a trend of cultural altercation, and eventually evolved into the dominant method of structural roster assembly. The movie was only popular because of this new era of existing normalities in the sports culture. With this being said, an adequate representation of hegemony’s presence in relation to this project is established. The next step in this literature reviews process is to dive into doxa theory.
Common sense is an ideological concept familiar to the majority of society, yet reasoning for why these unanimous guidelines exit can be complicated. Author Dnaiel
Helminiak explains how its unanimously understood that an individual recognizes a spiritual existence if they identify as religious. (Helminiak, 381) This is a functioning example of common sense within the confines of dominant western culture. Society forcefully expects the general public to abide by this preconceived knowledge.
Fortunately, Doxa theory offers a reliable realm of thought to unpack this previous cultural identification of common sense. According to Ott, and Mack: “doxa refers to any constructed aspects of a culture that its members do not really challenge or critically reflect on.” (Ott, Mack, 141) Including this definition from a reputable source in the realm of Media studies is the perfect guideline for the overall application of doxa theory in
Moneyballs screenplay. Billy receives so much backlash from dominant culture because its authority is rarely challenged. Oaklands scouting department reacts to Billy’s ideological perspective in an extremely personal way. They feel like their professional honor and credibility is under attack. Being surrounded by hegemonic culture’s influence for a significant period of time makes it impossible for these scouts to imagine any other alternative thought process from their own. This process represents a doxa because there is no room for minority opinion in the eyes of an old school baseball scout. This can be additionally justified by a statement form the University of Jerusalem :”common opinion, let us then provisionally assume a simple, direct referential link between word and object.” (Scolnicov, 75) An emphasis on the word “direct” functions to illustrate society’s expectation of collective thinking. At this point in the essay a proper development of the necessary framework is accomplished. The remainder of this literature review will build on the identification of moneyball’s thematic message or messages. After gathering a collection of relatable arguments from the relf of published scholarship, efforts will be made to search for ideological similarities about ineffective player evaluations.
Moneyball’s Scholarly Presence
Moneyballs publicized appearance in theaters allows for a hailing of scholarly discourse centered around its odds defying theoretical tactics. The events messages have even been applied in to both baseball and various examples of organizational culture shifts. Moneyball and the Baseball Players Market composes an agreeable claim about the film significance in Baseball cultures history. “Oakland A’s General
Manager, Billy Beane, to create a successful baseball team despite a small team payroll and a location in a small market” (Holmes, et al) This documents analysis appears to be focused on more than just the obvious financial miracle, the athletics position in dominant cultures food chain is also of interest. San Francisco tends to lack a large enough fanbase to sell a ideal amount of tickets during baseballs 162 game season.
The almost daily presence of baseball games gives the sport a unique opportunity to capture the ideological basis of its fans. Zachary Arth, and Andrew Billings argue that the sports consistent presence has the ability to alter civilizations culture. (Arth, Billings,
232) Its fair to say that for the purposes of moneyballs cinema appearance, the opposite dynamic occurs. Civilizations hegemonic normalities alter the sports functionality. The progressive minded culture in the bay area is not fully invested in baseballs obsession with intense tradition, and hetomasuline appearance of players. Before the days of moneyball baseball was viewed as a strong man's game.
Another scholarly argument forced on Moneyball’s economic discrepancy against
Oakland before the 2002 season claims:”for the five-year period 1999-2003, the
Oakland A's successfully exploited mis-pricing of skill in the labor market for baseball players” (Hakes, Sauer, 177) This product vs outcome labelization of the phenomenon feels like an accurate way to see the issues facing traditionalist baseball culture. The authors from this article are saying that dominant culture fails to view their players as investments, in addition to overvaluing the acquisition of a visual persona.
Moneyball’s cinema platform offers the chance for an examination with soly economic ambitions. Yet as the previous question demonstrated, valuable themes relating to my project's purpose are visible. The Texas Law Review justifies that
Oakland: “..challenged what until then had been considered the eternal themes from baseball.” (Paul, Gely, 1485) In order to conclude the scope of this greater literary conversation centered around Moneyball’s screenplay, a quote from the actor playing
Billy Beane’s role feels necessary. In an interview record with Entertainment Weekly, actor Brad Pitt explains what drew him to participate in the movie's production.: “What I found really interesting were the underdog themes—this idea of questioning perceived notions, you know? Things you're told as fact.” (Giles, 2011) Brad’s statement ideally supports the overall objective of this intended analysis. No doubt he recognizes that before the actual events illustrated in the script, the traditional method of evaluating players was unanimously uncontestable. His role of relaying this message to the general public was fully embraced during the sets filming. In the analysis section of my paper, several scenes from the movie capture Brad’s justifiable embodiment of initiating systematic opposition. However, before diving into the descriptive nature of this analysis a brief summarization of the attack plan for each scene will be unpacked. Nathan
Goldman
Introduction to Analysis When Moneyball became available in theaters fall of 2011, the general public encountered initial beginnings of a cultural transformation within Baseball culture. The film’s $110.2 million dollar box office profit (IMdbPro) is a testament to Hollywood's entertaining touch of hyper exaggeration. Groundbreaking events from the 2002
Oakland Athletics season are based on a true story, however cinema culture intensifies the ideologically dominant resistance facing Oaklands management. Baseball culture has historically had a consistent presence of systematically traditionalist values and expectations. Players are unofficially required to consent their on-field presentation according to the sports value of visualized athleticism. Looking like a ballplayer is just as important as on-field success. This structural emphasis on visible athleticism unfortunately hinders an organization's financial efficiency. Evaluating individuals based on physical appearance causes professional baseball teams to overpay for players.
According to an article on Fanduel Sports: “when players do hit free agency, they are often signing long-term deals that stretch well into their less-productive 30s. When players inevitably age, they are vastly overpaid to what they are actually worth.” (Jung,
2020) Moneyball justifies statistical data’s increasingly effective solution to maximize financial capabilities. Traditionalist talent scouts rely on an orthodox set of standards in the form of visually appealing generalities. Size, speed, personality, and even moral views often determine an athletes chances of benefiting the organization.
This essay will primarily focus on investigating the hegemonic traditionalism resisting Oaklands management present in Moneyball. Hegemony's dominance fundamentally provides an antagonistic force against team management throughout the majority of the big screen. The theoretical term Hegemony can be defined as: the
“process by which one ideology subverts other competing ideologies and gains cultural dominance through consent..” (Ott, Mack,p142) In the film (and in the world at the time), baseball scouts, local sports journalists, and the general public of old school fans are all acting in unison to extinguish this new wave of statistically based ideology. When
Oakland’s general manager Billy Bean decides to rebel against a system of naturalized traditional practices, his disruptive ideological presence becomes a threat towards the entire cultural identity of baseball. This ideological identity takes the form of what
Bourdieu calls a “doxa” in the eyes of traditionalists. Why would it make sense for
Oakland to disrupt a process of evaluation with a generationally reliable method?
In order to analytically dissect this initiation of hegemonic resistance, a raw textual investigation is necessary. Four specifically selected scenes from the movie will be individually dissected and critiqued. Page numbers from the ScriptSluge.com database will be referenced. Each scene contains unique representations of hegemonic traditionalism, while simultaneously containing a similar thematic presence.
Direct citations and situational descriptions will be established to support current scholarly discussions about baseball's historically old school culture. Before conducting the actual research, this essay will produce an initial hypothesis. This film shows how hegemonic player evaluation methods fail to account for the statistical benefits an individual can offer for the team winning percentage, because of an obsession with athleticism that is only capable of being recognized and evaluated by scouts with embodied experience and expertise, not a statistically provable set of criteria.
Analysis
Scene#1: “Its an unfair game”
In the opening portion of Moneyball, Oakland suffers a devastating playoff loss against the mighty New York Yankees. When the final out is recorded, General
Manager Billy Beane, aka Brad Pitt, knows his organization was about to lose their three best players to free agency. Severe budget constrictions make it impossible for the Athletics to even re-sign one member of the trio. After the Athletics Owner Stephen
Schott (Tony Frye, Whitcleatbeat.com) fails to provide any increase on the available budget for next season, Billy’s frustration becomes apparent. His competitive will to win can only be satisfied with a championship banner. His preexisting animosity sets the stage for a pivotal point in the narrative, because it's the first time hegemonic traditionalism is addressed.
Initial camera placement is fixated on a giant whiteboard when the scene begins.
The whiteboard is covered with a multitude of player name cards organized by their defensive positions. Muffled background conversations fill the silence as the camera zooms out. All of a sudden, a voice from a new character calls attention to the audience.
A double digit number of older white men sitting at a table turn their heads to look at their speaker. Head scout Grady exclaims: “Alright, guys... we had a great year. We won 102 games and we only came a buck short in New York. Now the bad news... we’ve got three big holes to fill.” (Moneyball, P18) Clearly Grady acknowledges that the organization is facing an extremely difficult situation involving potential on-field success.
Regardless, it immediately becomes apparent he is going to revert back to his usually strategic reasoning to solve the problem. When he asks the other scouts in the room which players they like for potential replacement options, their answers seem to interest him. The scout known as Keough describes: “I like Geronimo. Guy’s an athlete. This guy is big, fast and talented.” (Moneyball, 18) Unmeasurable generalities are immediately present in Keough’s reasoning for this player analysis.
Baseball's skill-based motions do not necessarily need strong muscles and quick feet to accomplish. A sports journalist named Conrad Guest, produced an article on
Bleacher Report relatable to this claim. Guest explains: “I look at a team like the
Yankees and I see more gifted athletes than I do ballplayers, and they haven’t won a championship since 2000.” (Guest, 2009) Despite this quote's age of over 10 years, it’s still relevant because the Yankees have only won one World Series Title in two decades. In relation to Moneyball, the New York Yankees are responsible for metaphorically enforcing Hegemonic traditionalism. The organization's infinite amount of wealth is a reason why Billy Beane decided to contest the then universal method of assembling rosters. There is absolutely no chance for a team like Oakland to obtain enough flashy players to compete with New York’s empire.
Yankees management usually acquires the undoubtedly successful veterans for top dollar. This entitled mindset definitely causes the Yankees to overlook statistical data.
The Yankees utilized their finances in 2002 to acquire Jason Giambi from Billy Beane’s ball club. A constant theme of Giambi’s ensuing departure heightens the urgency characterized in our initially analyzed scene.
After Grady and Keough exchange opinions about Geronimo’s potential, Billy
Bean finally decides to make his agitation known. Particularly the claim of: “Good jaw. He's the real deal” (Moneyball, 18) is his last straw. From a viewer's perspective, its honestly astonishing to witness none of the scouts object to this pointless observation about a players jawline appearance. Millions of dollars are on the line and this guy is worried about a player’s attractiveness. Traditionalist affiliation is the only explanation for such a nonchalant response. In other words, nobody questions the flawed take due to faith in the overall credibility of everyone in Oaklands scouting department. Similar perspectives on how to effectively evaluate ball players is assumed, so no explicit argument is seen to be necessary. This is a perfect example of what is called “group think.” The theory refers to individuals with good intentions who unfortunately mange to make decision that lack personal benefit, because of the pressure to conform.
(Bromwich) Before the days of Billy Beane’s newfound courage, management strategies surrendered to the hegemonic pressure of acceptance across the MLB. Baseball rationalists rely on the collective social pressure to resist deferenchiearing thoughts.
In response to hearing multiple dominant traditionalist values being affirmed, Billy repeatedly asks:”can he hit?” (Moneyball, 18,19) This simple question furthers Billy's frustration when he receives another unmeasurable generality. According to Keough:
“He's got a great swing…. Natural swing” (Moneyball, 19) Praising a natural swing’s visual attractiveness feels like a universal trait of a good hitter. But what constitutes a natural swing besides an obviously athletic movement? Fortunately Billy cuts right through the hollow claim: ”So you're saying he can’t hit?” (Moneyball, 19) When posing this rhetorical question to his scouting department, a monumental step is taken to oppose a hegemonic process that supposedly benefits the organization’s front office, and the player these scouts are complementing. However, in reality, a generalized analysis like this could be setting a player up to fail. Billy captures this lack of logic by sarcastically claiming: “right….we put him up against big league competition and suddenly he’ll be able to hit.”
As previously stated, this portion of the exchange is significant in the demonstration of systematically hegemonic flaws. The audience needs to understand why a historically significant ideological culture should be altered. Oakland’s loss in the opening scene of the movie is problematic, but it’s not justifiable to scrap an entire organizational mindset based on a single season's shortcomings. Hegemonic culture shifts take repeated agitational events to begin oppositional reasoning. Billy's sarcasm is only identified by the audience if they are able to recognize the scouts' patterned failure. Interpellation can be defined as:”..an account of the genesis of the subject; that is, of the subject as an already subjectified, and thus social, being.” (Noela Davis,882)
Monumental financial hurdles, and inefficient patterns of player evaluations, represent the existing subject in place.
Following the establishment of dual subjectivity, Billy gives the scene’s title: “its an unfair game” justification. An enormously thick book is slammed on the table by
Oakland’s General Manager. The room goes silent, and all the scouts turn and stare at
Billy. Now these traditionalist scouts are forced to address Billy's agitation because of his unprofessional behavior in a meeting. It is no coincidence that an unprofessional act finally got the scouts attention. Baseball's respectful cultural values contribute to the hegemonic tendency to overlook potential on-field success. However Billy doesn't care if he seems rude because he is willing to do what he has to do. That's a theme within Moneyball. A player's athletic appeal may not always look visually appealing but that doesn't mean they can’t contribute to a team's winning ability.
Eventually the tension among the entire room is broken by Billy's voice. He proclaims:”.....this is an unfair game. There are rich teams, poor teams, 50 feet of crap and then there’s us.” (Moneyball,21) Basically, Billy wants his scouting department to understand it is literally impossible for their organization to efficiently replicate normalized roster management strategies. He directly intends to demonstrate traditionalist culture’s ideological underpinnings. It's at this point that Grady finally seems to understand that Billy is talking about a larger scale problem than just the future of this season's roster. The
Head scout relies on his obvious alignment with Baseball culture’s majority to engage
Billy's argument. According to the script: “we’re gonna find 25 guys, put ‘em through player development, teach ‘em how to play Oakland A baseball. This is no time to push the panic button. This is the way we’ve been doing it for 150 years. Let us do our job.”
(Moneyball, 22) Grady's phrase “Oakland A baseball” is an attempt to show Billy that current hegemonic values are uncontestable, regardless of how dire the situation appears. Concluding the analysis of this scene with this particular statement feels appropriate. The short textual example, effectively summarizes Hegemony's presence in the entire scene. Normalized Baseball culture values visual generalities when evaluating players because of its naturalized usage among talent scouts. Unmeasurable opinions about a player's potential carry a credible value, because all the scouts in
Oaklands organization assume their peers possess the knowledge of dominant cultures' functionality. Every single individual in this room is allowed to participate in the discourse by virtue of dominant culture recognizing their authoritative intellectual perspective. In other words, these scouts gained this assumable credibility from previous events throughout their lifetime.
Scene#2 “Enter Peter Brand”
The next section of this analysis will build off this concept by utilizing additional textual examples of Hegemonic culture. As the movie progresses, its becomes critical for the film writers to demonstrate how Billy’s frustration was turned into a solution. So far this paper has descriptively discussed the problematic implications of normalized player evaluations. However, we have not explained why statistical data can be effective in producing a winning ballclub. Peter Brand is a pivotal character for illustrating Oakland’s plan to avoid ideological suppression from Baseball's dominant traditionalist majority. Audience members are introduced to Peter during a business consultation evolving Billy and the
General Manager of the Cleveland ball club. Cleveland is an example of what Billy means when talking about “rich teams”. In the 2002 season Cleveland's Roster Payroll was $78,909,449 compared to the Athletics' $40,004,167. (The Baseball Cube) With this in mind Billy knows he must think differently than his Cleveland competitors. Instead of trying to acquire an established veteren, he targets underrated players lacking baseball cultures' naturalized generalities based on athleticism. This claim is affirmed in the opening sentences of Billy’s business trip to Cleveland. The hosting General
Manager begins the conversion with asking Billy what he is looking for. (Moneyball,27) In response to an blatantly rhetorical question, Billy sarcastically answers: “50 million in additional payroll.” (Moneyball, 27) Billy’s response is exactly the answer Cleveland's
GM wanted to hear. He plays along with the sarcastic tone saying: “Try Giambi”
(Moneyball, 27) Intentions of this passively aggressive jab from the Cleveland GM is an attempt to expose the direness of Oakland’s roster situation. Billy’s advisory hopes this well demonstrates his superior position in the roster negotiation.
After exchanging an awkwardly tense greeting with Billy, Cleveland's GM questions Billy about his organization's solution to their challenging offseason. He asks:
“Where’s Steve in all this?” (Moneyball,28) The opposing general manager references
Steve because he is the Athletics Owner. This shows that Cleveland's GM recognizes his organization's benefits from baseball's traditionalist culture. He is essentially trying to see Athletics management is willing to take credibility for putting themselves in this horrendous position. Failing to meet the unified expectations associated with forming a competitive roster is simply the fault of Oaklands management, instead of systematic barriers. From the position of this flawed perspective, Cleveland is historically successful, because they know how to reap the systematic benefits of traditionalist player evaluation.
When Billy actually begins to discuss possible trade scenarios, the financial gap between the two teams hinders his persuasive tactics. Cleveland's GM repeatedly rejects every single one of Billy's offers on underrated players. Eventually Billy convinces him to consider a desperate offer that clearly positioned Oakland on the losing side of the exchange. Billy pleads: “Let’s make it work, I’ll go straight up with you,
Garcia for Guthrie, no kicker.” (Moneyball, 30) A straight up offer like this is an example of Billy using the systematic benefits of evaluation generalities. He knows that the player he offers possesses established athletic appeal, in comparison to his requested acquisition. Ironically, the Cleveland GM denied the over-generous offer after an unknown character whispered something in his ear. Additionally, the man who was responsible for the rapid change in the trade’s bipartisan agreement does not look like a identifiable member of traditionalist Baseball culture. The man's physical frame fails to resemble any athletic potential. Eventually we learn this nerdy looking man is actually
Peter Brand.
After leaving the trade negotiations empty handed, Billy decides to interrogate
Peter in order to find out why his opinion matters. Billy simply asks: “Why does Mark listen to You?” (Moneyball, 31) At first Brand attempts to dodge the question, until Billy gestures towards the door. Peter follows him outside to the parking garage due to fear of someone overhearing the true ideological framework behind of his player evaluation model. Peter knows the dominant influence of baseball culture would extinguish his ideological perspective if an authoritative member in Cleveland's organization was aware. Once they are completely out of view from any form of hegemonic surveillance,
Billy addresses him: “ I’m the first person in baseball who’s ever talked to you this long.
Right? Why is Garcia undervalued?” (Moneyball,33) Clearly Billy assumes that what he is asking Peter to do could potentially end his career in Baseball management. At this point Peter finally gives into the relentless pressure, and proceeds to give Billy the answer he is looking for. Peter explains: ”Baseball thinking is medieval. It’s stuck in the
Dark Ages. I have a more scientific view of the game.”(Moneyball,33) Peter finishes this statement with a shaky tone, still expecting Billy to antagonize his radically progressive theory. However, Billy is intrigued by the statement and tells him to keep talking. Peter continues on saying: “There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what’s really happening. And it leads people who run major league teams to misjudge their players and mismanage their teams. They’re still asking the wrong questions. People who run baseball teams still think in terms of buying players.” (Moneyball, 33)
This quote metaphorically serves as the meat and potatoes of this essay's argument. Hegemonic player evaluation methods fail to account for the statistical benefits an individual can offer for the team winning percentage, because of an obsession with visualized athleticism. Billy recognizes that he and Brand share similar agitation about the hegemony within baseball culture. As a result, Peter is hired by the
Athletics organization the following day.
Throughout the remainder of the movie, Billy and Peter combine their ideological perspectives to build a winning ballclub full of underrated players. Despite repeating their loss in the opening round of the payoffs, Billy's ability to overcome severe financial obstacles was recognized.
Scene#3 “Recognition”
When the 2002 Athletics season came to an end, Billy received an interview with the historically famous Boston Red Sox. Billy is completely blindsided by this random invitation, but decides to attend anyway. Billy's figures that traditionalist dominance in the MLB will suppress his achievement by calling it a fluke or a lucky season. However, when the Redsox owner (John) begins the interview, this is not the case. John claims:
“For 41 million you built a playoff team. You lost Damon, Giambi, Isringhausen and Pena and you won two more games without them than you did with them.” This statement is a monumental moment in the film's plotline, because it breaks the barriers of interpellation when it comes to universal methods of evaluating players. This ideological barrier represents a cultural doxa in Baseball culture. Pierre Bourdieu defines a doxa as: “constructed aspects of a culture that its members do not really challenge or critically reflect on.” (Ott, Mack,141) The members of Baseball culture this definition is referring to includes the Oakland Athletics, and the Boston Red Sox. Once another organization follow the cultural trend, the once dominant ideologies are no longer universal. After making his sales pitch, John slides an envelope over to Billy while saying: “My first offer.” (Moneyball, 159) The amount of money written on this envelope would make Billy the highest paid General Manager in Baseball history: Five and a half years 12.5 million (Yahoo sports) The magnitude of this offer is extremely important to Moneyball’s Hollywood success because it marked the beginnings of a cultural trend in Major League Baseball. Oakland’s evaluation process eventually became a new hegemony, but that’s a story for another day.
Conclusion
In conclusion, its fiar to say that Moneyball’s 2011 cinema appearance offered a platform to illustrate the initial efforts to alter baseballs traditionalist outlook on player potential, and roster management. Oaklands General Manager Billy Beane, utilized the powerful knowledge of statistical evidence from Peter Brand to show major league baseball that an athletic appearance, and a coachable personality were massively overvalued. Basically the traditionalist management style fails to directly measure their finical return of players. In a article provided by “Mathematical Problems in Engineerin” financial return:”In terms of organizational effectiveness, salaries have been known to influence important organizational indicators such as recruitment and retention of staff, staff performance” (Chuang, et al., 1) Back in the beginning of this essays argument it was stated that we are unsure what a culture shift shift looks like of why it happens.
Fortuatlay, its now conclusive that the necessity of a culture shift in player evaluation was needed in professional baseball because of hegemonic cultures utilization of unanimous conforty. The system of unwritten rules associated with the sport functions to police any form of ideological opposition. In other words Culture shifts function when the systematic establishment removes an individual's ability to question the unanimously encouraged message’s personal benefit. Furthermore, Hegemony is required to formulate a cultural doxa that needs to be broken. In the case of Moneyball, dominant culture’s generational opposition allows for the theories presence to coexist with common sense. However, as we know a cultural ideology cannot be completely destroyed. Instead of disappearing, traditionalist culture simply adapts to the trends obvious competitive edge. When Boston Offers Billy a massive contact to work for their historically praised organization, the moneyball theory becomes part of dominant culture. In present day baseball culture, the moneyball theory has become ideological common sense due to the movies successfully entertaining representation. Moneyball is techachly considered a doxa.
Hollywood's obsession with an exaggerated thematic illusion of a storyline, offers the most effective platform for the phenomenon to gain international attention from both the general public, and scholarly research. Plus, the acquisition of well known Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill are a nice bonus. Brad’s complete embodiment in the story's message was critical, because a dominant presence was needed to effectively demonstrate a force of resistance. Moneyball’s open ended platform will probably facilitate interest in ideological investigations for a long time. Hopefully its inspiringly addicting screenplay continues to serve as an illusion of a positive hegemonic shift.
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