Oscars 2012: "Moneyball"

"There will always be people who are ahead of the curve, and people who are behind the curve. But knowledge moves the curve." - Bill James

Bill James was a night security guard in the late 1970s when he began writing on baseball, using a statistical approach he devised called sabermetrics. He created new calculations of a ball player's performance based not on batting average or RBIs, but rather how frequently a batter reached base, or how many runs he helped his team score even if he himself didn't make it home.

Major league baseball was not quick to pick up on his ideas because, well, baseball saw no need to.

Credit: Columbia Pictures