The movie, which is set during the 2002 season, and is based on Michael Lewis’ New York Times bestselling book of the same name, comes out on Friday, and you can expect me to be in the audience on opening night.

First and foremost, I will be in the crowd because I love baseball — plain and simple. For me, it’s the best game in the world and nothing tops it. Nothing else matters to me when I’m watching baseball. Everyone needs such an escape.

The time has come for another movie about this sport. There hasn’t been a particularly great baseball movie since 2002’s “The Rookie.” I’m looking for that next classic I can watch over and over again, such as “61*” or “For Love of the Game.” And I have the feeling this could be the movie I’ve been searching for.

Lewis writes that he fell in love with a story — the story of how the Oakland Athletics, despite being one of the poorest teams in Major League Baseball, made the playoffs for four straight years.

Basically, “Moneyball” is about why the California-based team was so successful. How did one of the poorest teams compete with the monstrous payrolls offered to players by teams such as the New York Yankees and the New York Mets?

To first understand the story, you should know one detail: In 1990, Oakland’s players had the third highest payroll in the league and won the World Series the year prior. However, in 1995, the owner of the team died. The Athletics’ new owners ordered then-general manager Sandy Alderson to cut the payrolls of the team’s members and find undervalued players with the little money the new owners were willing to spend, which was a detriment to the team.

One of the key pieces to the puzzle of the team’s eventual success was the Athletics’ general manager Billy Beane, played by Pitt. After being one of the top young prospects scouts ever had seen, Beane didn’t quite turn out as the player the scouts dreamt of. So, Beane decided to pursue a career in the Athletic’s front office. After spending a couple of years as a scout, Beane was promoted to assistant general manager and then replaced Alderson as general manager in 1998.

Because the team could not afford the top free agents, Beane wanted to revamp the way it found players. Unlike every other team in the league, Beane pursued underappreciated players by looking at statistics, such as on-base percentage and slugging percentage instead of just batting average and physical attributes. Other teams might have thought the Athletics’ players weren’t fast enough or didn’t have enough strength, but Beane saw the potential in statistics other scouts didn’t really pay attention to.

If you’re not quite following, I’ll make it easier for you — Billy Beane decided to change the game. He did what no other professional team was doing — and what few people in baseball even understood — and led the Oakland Athletics, a team of underdogs, to numerous unexpected playoff appearances.

Now, this is a baseball story. But within this story is something much deeper, and I believe, even if you are not a baseball fan, you still will enjoy this movie. It’s that feel-good story that we all like — or at least I know I will like.