Opinion

Moneyball is a baseball film starring Brad Pitt and Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it's set to open sometime in 2011.

Hoffman will perform as former big league manager Art Howe, and Pitt -- one of the most famous people in the universe -- will be playing Billy Beane, the "mastermind" general manager of the Oakland A's.

If you follow the Mets beat writers on Twitter like I do, you would know that a majority of the conversation tonight was not about how the Mets got knocked around like chumps against the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves. 

No, tonight's trending topic amongst the Mets media was on how 20-year-old Jenrry Mejia was blowing people away in his start in Buffalo tonight.  Mejia, who was in the Mets bullpen for the first few months of the 2010 season, went eight innings of 1-run ball, striking out nine. 

Soon enough, on a playground in a neighborhood called Mannywood, the Manny Being Manny theme will cease, and what was formerly referred to as Dodgertown will earn back its honest name. So now, the Dodgers are finally getting the message, as a disappointing stint in Los Angeles is ending so miserably. For once, the locals are not ignorant or naïve, realizing that he’s a worthless sleaze and a franchise saboteur.

We've seen it throughout the years, as teams encounter difficult decisions, when long-serving veterans and fan-favorites enter the inevitable, athletic decline phase of their careers.

No one can escape the clutches of the dreaded father time, when a player's body simply cannot do the same things that it could during the prime of his youth. Maybe it's the eyesight, maybe the legs feel heavier and the footwork slower, the hands a tick behind Major League fastballs.

Fans haven't been hesitant to point to the player or the plan that keeps the San Francisco Giants from soaring to the top of the NL West and well past the field in the wild-card race.

As it turns out, though, most things that fans insisted the Giants do to get things going have been done and things haven't gone very well at all in the last month. The club is on the verge of falling out of the division race and has to keep pace with the Philadelphia Phillies, a tall order, to win the Wild Card.

No team in the National League playoff hunt is looking forward to September 1 more than the San Francisco Giants. Heading into the Colorado series, the Giants have only won six of their last 15 games.

The Giants desperately need a boost, especially in the pitching department. The team is fighting extremely hard, a credit to Bruce Bochy and the players, but the pitching looks tired. 

Carlos Beltran began his career with the Kansas City Royals in 1998. In his first full season in 1999, Beltran won the A.L. Rookie of the Year, batting .293 with 22 HR, 108 RBI, and 27 SB. He spent parts of seven years as a Royal, where he established himself as one of the few five-tool players in the game.

It seems like most of the superstars of the '00s have given us a reason to be disappointed in them. Bonds, A-Rod, Big-Mac, Slammin' Sammy and Manny, among others, have all come up tainted. It leaves a fan incredulous, ready to accept that any player with big numbers is dirty.

CC Sabathia leads the American League in wins. And now he's been tagged as the front runner for the 2010 American League Cy Young award.

If there are two subjects I love, they are baseball and politics. I have had various times in my life when I have been obsessed with both, and I have had various times in my life when I've had to shield my eyes from both.

Despite my interest in the two realms, I am always surprised when the two cross over. Sure, conservative political commentator George Will wrote one of the great baseball books of all time, and sure former President George W. Bush owned the Texas Rangers.