Some minus points for deviating from reality?

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2012)

Terrific script and a movie packed with top-notch acting performances and life lessons that are able to keep anyone engaged whether you know baseball or not.
Like any other better sports movie out there, Moneyball gave a lot of insight on the ups and downs of the dog-eat-dog world of pro sports accompanied with hidden themes of persistence & courage to go against all odds (or to defy reality) to achieve success. Unlike most other sports movies, but similar to The Wrestler, Moneyball is not made to overglorify sportsmanship and showed that things do not end up in your way all the time.
However, knowing that the same people who was behind 'Social Network' -- a movie that disappointed me -- was involved in this, I had to be skeptical on how accurate Moneyball portray the real people behind these characters. (NOTE: the movie claims to be based on true story, IT DID NOT HIGHLIGHT that it is based on the novel or other material) Like Social Network, I noticed immediately many things in the movie are quite dramatic, which is not a good thing if that causes it to stray too far from reality. For example, the real Billy Beane did not wore those fashionable attire or tracksuit (as done by Pitt) but look more like stolen from his stats assistant's wardrobe instead. Whatever... I have decided to let my final ratings be determined by how the actual people themselves felt about the movie. A quick browse online, I found Billy was satisfied with his character in the movie, Art Howe was offended, Scott Hatteberg did mentioned some things were incorrect in the movie, and I do not know if the sabermetrics guy felt okay with it. Hence, 7 stars is a good compromise from what looks like a 8-9 star at my first glance.