5 People Who Would Make Better Film Fodder Than Billy Beane

With the recent Columbia Pictures release of Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt as the intrepid A's GM Billy Beane, baseball found itself once again as a hot topic at the box office.

The film portrayed Beane's creative attempts to field a competitive team despite a low payroll by utilizing sabermetric stats, an in-depth numerical analysis of players' performance in a variety of areas and how those numbers relate to victory.

The film gave an in-depth look at the behind-the-scenes workings of Beane, who studied the research by author Bill James. James and others developed unconventional statistics like OPS (on-base plus slugging) percentage, WAR (wins above replacement) and a player's defensive "range factor" numerical analyses that have joined the mainstream lexicon over the last few years.

After Beane's A's won the American League West three times in a four-year span from 2000-03, sabermetrics became a quick study for aspiring general managers and were adopted by some as a tool, particularly the Boston Red Sox, who hired James to their front-office staff.

Beane's story became the basis for a 2003 book, Moneyball, written by Michael Lewis.

The film, which was released in late September, justly received high marks.

The dynamics of baseball run deep in not only our collective psyche, but they also play a major part of American history. What are some other baseball stories that need to be developed into feature films?

Lou Gehrig's story is one of the great films—Pride of the Yankees—for baseball fans, as Gary Cooper plays the proud and stoic Yankee first baseman as he found a place as a star on those great Yankee teams of the 1920s and '30s beside the bigger-than-life Babe Ruth. He performed at a Hall of Fame level for over a decade, then had his brilliant career ended all too early because of a previously unknown neurological disease which now bears his name.

Ruth himself was the subject of the 1992 film The Babe, starring John Goodman as the Sultan of Swat, one of the great American characters in American history and a person who had perhaps the greatest impact on any sport, ever.

We're discounting the ESPN films that detailed the life of Pete Rose, as well as the soap opera-like Yankee teams of the late 1970s. Those are all great stories with fantastic appeal.

Now for the ones we'd love to see.

5. Barry Bonds

We may still not know the full extent of players' use of performance-enhancing drugs, but since many films start out as books, we have Game of Shadows as a reference point.

We also have other first-hand accounts of the period known as the steroid era in baseball, how the great home run chases of the late '90s helped heal the baseball world after the 1994 World Series was canceled and how the sport came to grips with the cold-hard fact that some players were using drugs in an attempt to gain a physical advantage over competitors.

There's so much a film could get into. For example, some research could show that steroid use was only done by a handful of players, dispelling the notion that a majority of the 1,000-plus players in the league were using it. It could delve into the culture surrounding the attraction to performance-enhancers, as well as the masking agents and help by personal trainers in this area.

Fair or not, Bonds, who holds the single-season and career records for home runs, is the poster child for the steroid era, despite never failing a drug test nor being suspended for its use.

Perhaps a quality film could finally put to bed an issue that needs not only the right tone, but also one that could help in the recovery of a sad era in baseball.

4. The 1986 Red Sox Playoff Run

The 2011 end to the regular season may have been the best ever, but still the most memorable and mind-blowing postseason ever came in 1986, especially involving the Boston Red Sox.

Boston's incredible comeback in the American League Championship Series, stamped by Dave Henderson's go-ahead homer in Game 5, when the Sox were trailing 5-2 entering the ninth and down to their last strike against closer Donnie Moore, boosted the team to recover from a 3-1 deficit to win the AL Pennant.

Then came the unbelievable World Series, capped by the Game 6 meltdown, in which the Red Sox blew a two-run, 10th inning lead, being just three outs away from winning the team's first title in 68 years.

It's still mind-blowing to this day. A good title? Ecstasy and Agony may be appropriate.

Come to think of it, considering Boston's more recent choke-job, perhaps this flick is better to be released in another year.

3. Joe DiMaggio

"Joltin' Joe" was one of America's most beloved people in the World War II era.

Born to Italian immigrants, DiMaggio got his first shot at professional baseball in 1932, when older brother Vince talked the San Francisco Seals manager into letting Joe fill in at shortstop.

He stuck with the club, and the very next year, he set a Pacific Coast League record with a 61-game hitting streak.

He joined the New York Yankees in 1936 and won two MVPs and two batting titles when he walked away from the game in 1943 to enlist in the Army. He missed three seasons (1943-45) in the prime of his career serving his country.

In 1941, he authored the major league's longest hitting streak of 56 games, deemed one of the most difficult records to break. Since he set the record, the closest anyone has gotten to it was when Pete Rose hit in 44 consecutive games in 1978.

After the war, he won his third MVP in 1947, and the following year smashed a league-best 39 homers with 155 RBI while batting .320.

He retired in 1951 after only 13 seasons on the diamond.

In 1954, he married Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasted less than a year.

There are certainly some interesting stories to tell about the "Yankee Clipper," who is certainly worthy of admiration many generations later.

2. Bill Veeck

George Will once said that no baseball fan ever paid for a ticket to see an owner at work, but if fans ever would, it would be for Veeck, one of the most colorful owners in major-league history.

Veeck, a former Marine who had a wooden leg because of a World War II injury, was the primary owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox from 1946 to 1980. Not being one of the rich owners, he went about promoting baseball as an entertainment product and is responsible for many promotions and innovations to the game.

Veeck started out as a popcorn vendor for the Cubs while his dad worked as president of the team. The younger Veeck came up with the idea of planting ivy on the wall at Wrigley Field.

He was reportedly ready to buy the cash-strapped Philadelphia Phillies in the early 1940s and stock the team with mostly Negro League players, but his attempts to acquire the team were shot down.

A year after purchasing the Indians in 1946, he signed Larry Doby, the first black player to play in the American League.

Later as owner of the White Sox, he testified against baseball's reserve clause, which prevented player movement outside of ownership's control. He was the only owner to publicly support Curt Flood in his attempt to gain free agency, which the player ultimately won in a court case and opened the "flood" gates to today's free-agent world.

He was a showman and bold promoter of the game. He hired Max Patkin, a.k.a. "The Clown Prince of Baseball" as coach one year in Cleveland. Veeck was also behind the one-game appearance of Eddie Gaedel, a 3'7" midget who pinch-hit in a 1951 game between the Browns and Detroit Tigers.

After he purchased the White Sox in 1959, he added the famous exploding scoreboard to Comiskey Park, a replica of which is still in use in the team's new ballpark. He was also the first to put the players' last names on the backs of the jerseys.

He hired famous broadcaster Harry Caray and later convinced him to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to the crowd at old Comiskey Park.

He was also infamously involved the Chicago's Disco Demolition Night in 1979, a promotion celebrating the end of the disco era which would include the explosion of a crate of old disco records. But it quickly turned bad when a riot ensued and the outfield caught on fire. The White Sox were forced to forfeit the second game of the doubleheader that day.

1. Jackie Robinson

Granted, there was a biographical film, The Jackie Robinson Story, done in 1950 starring Robinson as himself.

But isn't the time ripe for a remake? This is one of the best stories in American history, and numerous updates can be made referring to his impact on the American sports landscape, from baseball to other sports.

Robinson died in 1972 in the middle of the civil rights movement, so he never was able to see the full fruits of his labor. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

What also needs to be portrayed is the courage of Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who also faced strong criticism for signing Robinson, despite Jackie's impeccable baseball credentials.

This story may be one we're already familiar with, but it deserves the right touch, with the right casting.