Moneyball/Field of Dreams

A double-bill of baseball themed movies. 'Moneyball' (2011), based on real events in 2002, follows the unconventional tactics employed by Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), general manager of the cash-strapped Oakland Athletics baseball team, to rebuild his club after losing a few key players to the Major League.

Beane enlists the services of Yale economics graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) to devise an unorthodox player selection system based on a sophisticated statistical analysis of each player's skills.

As Billy and Peter start to build their team based on computer-generated data rather than the traditional scouting methods, they meet with resistance from old hands such as team manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

But when the club begins a winning streak with its roster of inexpensive 'wild card' players, the naysayers are forced to admit that the scheme appears to be working.

In 'Field of Dreams' (1989), Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is encouraged by a mysterious voice to build a baseball pitch on his land.

According to the celestial guide, this unusual step will result in the appearance of the ghost of his father's hero, the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta).

Bemused yet intrigued by the heavenly intervention, Ray risks his livelihood installing the pitch, and finds an unlikely, and unwilling, partner to help explain the reasons he is doing so: burned-out radical author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones).