Now that “Moneyball” is winning rave reviews from movie critics, time for collateral damage. Ex-A’s manager Art Howe was all over Bay Area sports radio yesterday decrying the unflattering way he’s portrayed in the movie—“character assassination” he calls it—and suggests GM Billy Beane may have had something to do with it. Beane responds sharply in today’s Oakland Tribune. That’s Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who looks nothing like Art Howe, portraying him in the film.
Add: And poor ex-scouting director Grady Fuson, who left the A’s on good terms in 2001, is not only wrongly portrayed as having been fired, but of dropping an F-bomb on Beane on his way out the door. He’s laughing it off, but the scene upset his wife at the premiere. As they say, that’s show business.
