Everyone says they love Moneyball.
But not everyone had to live through it.
Sure, it’s a cult classic. It gave us Brad Pitt in a ballcap and the famous “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” line.
It made analytics cool.
However, let’s be honest: Hollywood did what Hollywood does. It took a good story and bent the truth for a better narrative.
Just ask David Justice. Over the years, he’s been pretty open about how the movie took some serious liberties with his role in the A’s clubhouse, crafting a version of events that made for a better script than a biopic.
And he’s not the only one.
Mark Shapiro, then an executive with the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) and currently with the Toronto Blue Jays, wasn’t exactly thrilled with his portrayal, either. The movie boiled down complex front office negotiations into a tidy underdog tale. And in doing so, some real people ended up flattened into caricatures.
Some real people like Shapiro.
“So here’s the story: I’m a GM in Cleveland,” Shapiro explained on the Gate 14 podcast. “The PR guy comes, throws a movie script on my desk, and says, ‘Hey, they’re making this movie.’ I read over the script, and I’m like, ‘Well, it’s not factual; what do you want me to approve?’ I wasn’t GM. Billy [Beane] was never in my office. I recommended Paul DePodesta to him; he didn’t steal him from us. The [Ricardo] Rincón trade is a joke. We were dumping Rincón, laughing as we were doing it because we had traded all those other guys already. It wasn’t like Billy engineering or fleecing us.
That alone might’ve been enough to raise an eyebrow or two. But Mark Shapiro says the fallout never really stopped.
“So, I was like, ‘Whatever. Sure.’ Little did I know that for over 20 years, I would be answering every speech I give, I’d be answering the question,” he adds. “I’ve got [Blue Jays Chairman] Edwards Rogers sending me memes of Reed Diamond, giving me a hard time about who’s playing me. ‘How come Brad Pitt played Billy Beane, and you got Reed Diamond playing you?’ They knew he looked okay in a golf shirt, had a receding hairline, and wore khakis. ‘I guess that’s all we gotta do to replicate Shapiro.’ ‘Just put him in a golf shirt, khakis, with a receding hairline; that’s it.'”
What does Mark Shapiro think about his role in the movie “Moneyball” pic.twitter.com/WoRldDhLPu
— Gate 14 Podcast (@Gate14Pod) April 9, 2025
So yeah, while the world fell in love with Moneyball, Mark Shapiro got stuck with the meme.
While Moneyball may have reshaped how fans think about analytics, it also reshaped how many real people are remembered. As far as Shapiro is concerned, Hollywood didn’t just rewrite history; it also dressed it up in khakis and called it a win.