Every industry has its own set of unwritten regulations. If these rules last for a long time, they will become the "golden rule" in the industry, a guide for action on the rivers and lakes. Since the birth of the baseball league, money, stars, and the scouting system have been the three main elements to keep the game running. For decades, scouts of various teams have selected new players from high schools and college leagues based on their personal experience and preferences, and managers have used money to trade stars between different teams. Therefore, when the three main players of the Oakland Athletics team, the bottom-most and poorly poor team, were dubbed with high salaries, the scouts in the team continued their usual idea of using money to buy good players to replace them.
Where can I find good players without money? When the team general manager Billy Been was frowning, Yale University economics graduate Pete Brandt reminded him of the "magic ball" theory-using mathematical modeling to run the team and choose cheap And players who are severely underestimated have the same chance of winning as a team. Billy adopted this theory that was considered by the baseball industry to be on paper, and selected a group of "old, weak, sick and disabled" players. Scouts objected, "his appearance is too strange", "his personal life is chaotic", "his posture is too weird"... Billy stood out from the crowd and insisted on letting these players play.
Is the scouting system really perfect? Is the scouting experience really foolproof? Listening to the unanimous objections of the veterans in the conference room, I felt a little funny. Is a player's strength determined by his appearance, hairstyle, hobbies and even his personal life? These absurd standards have been in use only because they have been used for many years and have become a scout's inertial thinking that cannot be shaken off and is unwilling to get rid of. And Billy is the victim of this system. Under the praise of scouts, he resolutely gave up the Stanford University scholarship to join the professional league. It took many years to find that he was not suitable to be a professional baseball player.
Even if it is an abstract idea, people will become dependent on it after a long time with it. Once it disappears, we are like blind people who have lost crutches, our actions lose our direction and our spirits lose their sustenance. In order to obtain a sense of psychological security, we treat these potentially unreasonable ideas as rules that cannot be changed. But when the environment changes, the irrationality of the old golden rules gradually emerges, and instead becomes a prejudice that hinders our progress, just as the practice of buying players is unrealistic for the stretched Oakland Athletics team.
But not everyone has the courage to change Billy, because change is a gorgeous adventure to abandon the past and embrace the unknown future. When everyone cheered for the team’s 20-game winning streak, only Billy said to Pete preoccupiedly: “We have to win the final. Only when we win the championship, critics will recognize our achievements and we can change the rules of the game. "
Change is a lingering word in Billy's mind. From changing the fate of the team to changing the way the baseball industry operates, he has left a rich legacy in the pursuit of innovation again and again. Although the Oakland Athletics did not win the championship in the end, the Boston Red Sox won the world championship with Billy's philosophy, and the "magic ball" theory was finally successfully promoted.
Jeremy Lin’s performance is considered crazy. In my opinion, this is just another example of changing and eliminating prejudice. Because the scouts did not do well in running, jumping and shooting, the main indicators of player evaluation, his strength has not been fairly evaluated. Until the Knicks coach used this "bench player", Jeremy Lin finally ushered in his own stage, showing his outstanding basketball wisdom and becoming the team's leader.
There is never a lack of sports inspirational themes in the movie circle, but it can shift the focus from the athletes themselves to the management behind the scenes of competitive sports, and sublimate the theme of sports movies from tenacious struggle to various thinking about changes in life and the arena. There is only "Penalty Kick". Coincidentally, in the movie, Billy always seeks to change the way he runs the team, and the directors and screenwriters outside the movie are also trying to innovate in the way of telling stories. In the end, both of them stand out in their respective fields. It can be said that the "change" wins when they meet on a narrow road.
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