when math is at the service of sport

Can winning or losing a baseball championship be a matter of math? That’s what former player Billy Beane thought when, in 1998, he was hired to compose the Oakland Athletics team. Management has already spent a lot to acquire famous players who have disappointed, and can no longer afford to splurge to remain competitive in the Major League.

Beane will use sabermetrics, a statistical approach, to fire or hire sometimes low-rated players, with unexpected results. This authentic story will be the subject of a book, “Moneyball”, from which the film broadcast this evening is taken.

But the challenge taken up by director Bennett Miller (who took over from Steven Soderbergh), even if he was able to count on Brad Pitt’s sympathy capital to achieve this, is to capture attention with a film -even at the antipodes of the genre. No team story given for loser who overcomes the opponent in a crescendo of emotions, but the statistical charts of a dispassionate hero. !

“The strategist”, August 1, 11:05 p.m., Arte.