5-22-25

Did you ever see the movie “Moneyball”…..good flick….it stars Brad Pitt and

Jonah Hill…..a true story of the 2002 effort of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy

Beane to build a winning team from a franchise with a limited budget……it’s an

epic story of doing what I would call “building the bench”……because in any team

you’ve got to have the bench…..the ability to field the players but also have a

depth chart that replaces your onfield losses……you’ve got to have a full bench of

worthy candidates with each one having their role down and able to jump in where

needed…….without a deep bench you run the risk of coming up short when your

current lineup suffers unexpected losses……

So the story in Moneyball was that Billy Beane, the character played by Brad Pitt,

was the GM for the Oakland A’s and they had just lost to the Yankees for the

American League Division Series…..soon after Beane found that his top three

players were leaving and he needed to basically put together a team…..almost a

new team….with depth……but he wasn’t being given a strong enough budget to

reruite star talent……so he went scouting but he found something….really

someone….that he didn’t expect while visiting the Cleveland Indians looking for a

trade…..he came across a young Yale economics grad named Peter Brand played

by Jonah Hill……like the rain man with statistics and numerical predictions Brand

had developed his own system for assessing players as recruits but no one was

taking him seriously….except Billy Beane…..so Beane hired him and made him

the Asst GM for the A’s……and then they went on the hunt for players that they

could afford, players who were underappreciated or undiscovered but who the

numbers said would perform under certain conditions……it was anything but

traditional recruiting and Beane took heat for it…..he began bucking his team

owner and contradicting fan opinions….sports writers wrote him off as a nut…..he

recruited guys from the minors…or off the bench for other franchises……he even

goes so far as to trade off his top two players for trade rights to multiple others

leaving his team owner no choice but to play the system that Beane and Brand had

developed…….and they were 11 games down…..but then they hit their stride with

a new relief pitcher that Brand’s numbers said to go with and in short order they

closed to just 4 games behind……Eventually with a new bench and a new system

the A’s won the 2002 American League West title…..they didn’t make the World

Series that year but folks were taking notice……so much so that the Boston Red

Sox contacted Beane and told him that if he would come to work for them and

implement his system for their franchise that they would make him the highest paid

GM in Major League history……he actually turned it down to stay with the A’s

and to be close to his daughter……but the Red Sox figured out the Beane/Brand

Moneyball system for themselves, they put it into action, and just two seasons later

the Red Sox broke their 86-year drought and won the 2004 World Series using the

Beane/Brand Moneyball recruiting system to build their bench…..

It was actually a really good movie….made even better by the fact that it was a

really good true story about someone who saw a better way….a better more

efficient off-standard out-of-the-box way to build a team…..to create depth…..to

build a bench……and that my friends is what we have got to be doing across this

state if we don’t want to see our politics go purple……You heard me right….I’m

saying that we have to get outside of the box and begin a more active recruiting of

candidates for all offices……actual conservatives who have principled positions

that go beyond even party politics……now you know me, I’m a longtime

Republican, a former County Party Chairman, a member of the Republican State

Executive Committee, and an elected Republican State Senator….that’s my team,

that’s my brand, that’s who I root for……but when have you ever known any

sports team to just sit on their laurels and wait to see who tries out for the

team…..not the winning teams that’s for sure……they recruit….they fill their

capabilities gaps with specialized players….they develop their skill sets and train

them with not only the play book but also the team branding and culture……they

go find the team members that they want…..the team members that they will be

proud of…..the team members that they will win with……why should it be any

different with politics…..

Who’s running for your local school Board?.......who’s running for your City

Council?......what candidates are lined up to run for Mayor of even the smallest

towns in the State?....Keep in mind that we recently had a candidate for Governor

who is the Mayor of a municipality with less than 4500 people….a Republican

who wants to legalize marijuana…..interesting…..but that’s what happens when

we don’t pay attention, or we don’t ask questions, or we don’t recruit…….but in a

different vein I have a friend, Representative Mack Butler, he recruited me to join

the local Republican Party, he was the local Party Chairman, he was a member of

the School Board, and he is now in Montgomery serving in the legislature…..he is

living proof that good guys can win and that not everyone has to run for the big

ticket million dollar races up front……Mack Butler recruited me to the

party….and then a man named Roy Smith recruited me to run for the

Senate…..I’ve often wondered what would have happened if those two men had

not called on me and asked me to get in the mix…..

But we are coming up on a huge season right now…..I don’t recall a time in

Alabama politics where we had so many open seats…..we’ve got empty seats for

Mayors, councils, school boards, some legislative races, and every single one of

our statewide races for Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, you name

it…..how in the world can we see that many open seats and not go out and recruit a

quality conservative candidate…..someone who is bona fide, someone who has

backbone, someone who has a calling and principles and stamina……we have to

be intentional about who we elect, but before we elect we have to first select,

Select the ones that will do the best job……select them because you know them, or

you like what they stand for……we can’t just wait around and see who shows up

to qualify to run for office….we have to go find them…..and find good ones…..

And I will tell you this…..elected officials are nothing special….they may have

some cool stuff on their resumes but they are just normal folks doing a job…..they

come from all walks of life…..I’ve told you before that when I sat in my desk on

the Senate floor I had a retired teacher to my right, a retired Marine to my left, a

farmer, a dentist, a restaurant owner, a real estate agent….all of them sitting around

me as living proof that there is no special qualification in terms of where they

come from or how much education they have……what we need are their

principles….and that is why we need to focus on building the bench…..who are we

asking, encouraging, cajoling and begging to run for office, all offices, every

office…..we need to deepen the roster, so that when one retires or leaves or goes

down there are so many others that we can look to fill their role……we have got to

recruit….and get outside the box…..go find that man or woman who you

appreciate as a true conservative and tell them that you will knock on doors and put

up a sign and help with whatever if they will run……or consider this…..maybe

that person is you. Maybe you have more to offer than you know.

We have got to build the conservative bench…..right now the Party that would

house that kind of candidate is the party of Reagan, the Republican Party, but

being a conservative and being a Republican are not always the same thing……

We have got to build that bench…..that conservative bench….. In Moneyball Billy

Beane changed the way he thought with the help of a numbers guy who sat in a

cubicle looking at stats….he quit thinking about players and started thinking about

wins….and to think about wins he had to think about runs….and to think about

runs he had to examine how he recruited…..and he changed baseball recruiting

forever…..and he built his bench….and that’s exactly what we have to do in our

politics….quit believing that only the star power wins the day….find the

unexpected hero and recruit them to run for office……

And change our politics forever…..

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way