VARIETY and FIRST SHOWING both report this week that Brad Pitt is set to star as A’s GM Billy Beane in a big screen adaptation of the book “Moneyball.”

Moneyball is a project setup at Sony that we first mentioned way back in March. Oscar winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Mission: Impossible, American Gangster) has signed on to adapt the screenplay for David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me) to direct.

(OBVIOUS: Spacey a better fit than Pitt as Beane)

STRIKE ONE: OK, so the same guy who wrote the screenplay for Schindler’s List is going to do the same for a book about the Oakland A’s?

I think he might be a little better suited to an interpretation of the Royals’ last 15 seasons.

More from First Showing:

Producer Michael De Luca previously explained what their take is: a “dramatic depiction of that 2002 season” that is “condensed to really the beginning and end of that season that contained the 22 game winning streak.” De Luca adds: “I think there should be a mix of a sports movie but also an anti-establishment triumph of the individual in terms of the way Billy Beane went up against conventional wisdom and the bureaucracy.”

STRIKE TWO: The film does sound intriguing - but Pitt as the lead? Does this mean we can expect to see Billy Beane’s six-pack abs? Oh, I forgot, the book is set right in the heart of baseball’s steroid era, so perhaps that is a possibility.

I was thinking more along the lines of Kevin Spacey (Olmedo Sáenz’ dome in rolling around the batter’s box as a plot twist?)

STRIKE THREE: There’s somehow no mention of Charlie O. The Mule making a cameo.