Great Scene: “Moneyball”

How the song “The Show” nails a key theme in the story.

The 2011 movie Moneyball may be the best movie about baseball … that isn’t really about baseball.

Plot summary: Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.

While that is a fair description of what happens in the plot, the Themeline provides an emotional resonance that elevates the story and makes it special: Beane had been a top baseball prospect who made it to the Major Leagues, but washed out as a player. It is that shadow of his past which hangs over his character throughout the film, influencing his every mood and action.

Beane has a teenage daughter Casey who lives full-time with her mother and step-father. When she visits Beane and he picks her up at the airport, they immediately go to a music store to look at guitars for her. He asks her to sing a little something for “dear old dad.” Here is the verse of the song she sings:

Here are the lyrics:

I’m just a little bit caught in the middle
Life is a maze and love is a riddle
I don’t know where to go, can’t do it alone I’ve tried
And I don’t know why

I am just a little girl lost in the moment
I’m so scared but I don’t show it
I can’t figure it out
It’s bringing me down I know
I’ve got to let it go
And just enjoy the show

The song works on so many thematic levels — the riddle of baseball (the movie begins with a quote from New York Yankee great Mickey Mantle, “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all…