On Topic: Play ball, play fair

Opening Day was last week, which means it was time to watch 'Moneyball' again.

It's not that I'm a huge baseball fan. (To be clear, I have nothing against it, but I've found I can be obsessed over only a single sport at a time. This isn't baseball's time.)

But what I love about the 2011 movie, aside from its being funny and clever, are the not-so-subtle management tips screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin sprinkled throughout the script.

About midway through the movie, for example, Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) talks to a somewhat disengaged player. Beane points out the player, David Justice (Stephen Bishop), is 37 years old, aging out of the sport, and asks him what he wants his 'legacy' in the game to be. How does he want to be remembered?

He adds that 'Old Man' Justice, as one scout calls him, could set himself as an example of how to behave, on the field and off, for the others on the team. He could act as a mentor.

'I'm not paying you for the player you used to be,' Beane says. 'I'm paying you for the player you are now.'

I confess to having pinched this speech, as best as I could remember it, as well as a few others from this movie, in discussions with employees and co-workers over the past few years. (It definitely helps if they've not seen the movie.)

The premise of 'Moneyball' is that Beane wants to change baseball — 'I want it to mean something' beyond paying ever-higher salaries, winning games and breaking records. He and his statistician assistant (Jonah Hill) try to do this by trading for 'undervalued' players, then honing what those men do well.

When one player insists on attempting to steal bases because, he says, 'Stealing is what I do — it's what you pay me for,' Beane snaps back, 'No, I pay you to get on first, not to get thrown out stealing second.'

Stick to the plan, he demands — a strategy that at first faces phenomenal opposition from players, staff, fans and the team's owner.

Beane starts to pay attention to small stuff, too. Justice questions why players have to pay for drinks from the training room's soda machine. Later, as part of a trade, Beane throws in he also wants the other team to stock the A's soda machine for three years.

Up to this point, it seemed as if Beane wasn't even aware of the soda dilemma, let alone cared about it.

Keep your eyes on the prize and stick to the overall scheme, the message reads. But also listen to the things that might seem less significant — to you, at least.

Winners and losers

And speaking of sports, if you've not been paying attention to the federal complaint over pay discrimination in professional women's soccer, you truly should. The fracas isn't just about sports, but about paying people fairly for equal work.

Five of the biggest U.S. stars still active in the sport — Carli Lloyd, the headliner of last year's World Cup in Canada — along with Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn — presented the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with a valid and long-simmering argument against the U.S. Soccer Federation: Female players are paid far less — an insultingly amount less — than male players for national games.

As the New York Times and others have noted, a male player pockets $5,000 a game, even if the USA loses, and up to $17,625 for beating a big team — Germany or Spain, say. A female player, however, receives $1,350 — and that's only if her team wins.

And you cannot in any serious manner debate the issue on sports-as-entertainment merits. Trust me, having watched lots of women's and men's national games, I can tell you which is the better, smarter, faster, cohesive, more-engaged team on a consistent, game-after-game basis. And the stats overwhelmingly endorse which team performs on the world stage — the women have won three World Cups, took four gold medals at the Olympics and are ranked No. 1 in the world — and which team on occasion doesn't appear to be able to even keep up with their opponents on the field.

For the soccer fan, the debate could see the women decline to show up for the Olympics this August in Rio, as Wall Street Journal columnist Matthew Futterman suggests.

For those who care, in the broader sense, about progress and fairness at work, this a far bigger deal indeed.

• Michael Chevy Castranova is enterprise and Sunday business editor of The Gazette. (319) 398-5873; michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com