The A’s are too depressing to watch these days. Sure, Giambi and Cust pulled through on Wednesday night when they needed to, but my boys are in last place in their division. As of Thursday, 32-43? Is that the best you can do? Whatever happened to the Oakland teams that would come to the plate in the bottom of the ninth ready to turn the score around? Whatever happened to the 20 game winning streak–the 20th of which was won with a homer at the end of a tied game–and the relatively competitive pennant races that followed? That’s soooo 2002 and soooo 2003, you say.

Well, so is Moneyball, Michael Lewis’s brilliant expose of Billy Beane’s recruiting and budgeting tactics. Shedding light on Beane’s successful efforts to keep Oakland competitive while working with a much smaller budget than other teams in the division (did I hear someone say Steinbrenner?), the book quickly amassed a following within the industry, many of whom weren’t necessarily A’s fans like yours truly.

So you can imagine how excited this baseball devotee was to hear that the book was being made into a movie: a documentary-style (i.e. not a documentary but in the spirit of one) account of the A’s approach to the 2002 draft and subsequent events. (Link to IMDB Moneyball page) Of course, there were the handful of naturalists who were miffed that Brad Pitt was cast to play Billy Beane–why can’t Beane play himself?, they asked–but given that a number of former A’s were scheduled to cameo (Scott Hatteberg–speaking of that 20 game winning streak, David Justice, Art Howe, among others), I’m certain they would have headed out to the local Regal and paid $12 to see it anyhow. Plus, Demetri Martin was cast as Paul de Podesta; how could you NOT go see that performance?

But apparently Sony, who bought the rights to the film, has halted production just one week prior to the first scheduled shoot. The folks at Sony and Director Steven Soderbergh just didn’t see eye to eye on the script: Soderbergh didn’t like the fact that the draft script apparently included scenes that didn’t actually happen. I can understand that. But I’m bummed that they couldn’t come to an agreement of sorts. I guess I won’t get to spend the fall tracking the film’s progress–something I’d planned to do while my A’s were sitting out October, as they tend to do.

(Luckily, it looks like California college football will provide for some interesting moments this fall. Stanford is pretty excited about its redshirt freshman starter QB, Andrew Luck–and there’s a chance that Cal will beat ‘SC (home game!) this year, especially seeing as most of last year’s relatively green Berkeley team will be back a bit more seasoned. Speaking of SoCal, given UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel’s outbursts earlier this month, the Trojans-Bruins rivalry will be more intense than it has been in recent years, regardless of whether the coaches’ kids are allowed on the sidelines.)

Related posts:

1. BASG REAL Q&A with Billy Beane
2. Bashing Cleveland fans and Mark Jackson, along with some links