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Okie Boarder
09-23-2011, 03:42 PM
We grew up around the Ebert family. Derrin went to the same schools as my brother and I elementary through high school. My brother was friends with him through that period in time. We remember when he got drafted...pretty cool stuff.


Scorpion-turned-Brave makes big screen debut in 'Moneyball'

Beau Yarbrough
09/23/2011 8:30 AM

HESPERIA • Seventeen years after he last played ball in the Victor Valley, area residents will be able to see Derrin Ebert play again Friday — this time on the big screen, in the movie “Moneyball” opening in theaters Friday.

Ebert, a 1994 Hesperia High School graduate, portrays fellow Oakland A’s pitcher Mike Magnante.

“A guy I used to play Little League with ... knew the casting director, and the casting director asked him if he knew any guys who used to play baseball,” Ebert said by phone Thursday, “because they wanted it to be as (realistic) as possible.”

Ebert was one of two former Major League Baseball players in the cast.

The Atlanta Braves drafted him straight out of high school in the 18th round of the 1994 amateur draft. Ebert went on to make his big league debut as a relief pitcher for the Braves in 1999, playing five games.

Today, he teaches high school history in Arizona and coaches a traveling baseball team.

Initially, Ebert thought he would just be asked to play ball in the background of various scenes. However, as the audition process went on, it became clear he was being eyed for a more substantial part, and was asked to act frustrated and throw his glove down on the bench after a bad inning.

“’What did you do,’” he recalls asking the casting director, “’look at my resume or something?’”

Once hired, film executives were open to input from the former professional ballplayer, listening to him when he said a locker room scene written by legendary screenwriter Aaron Sorkin didn’t ring true.

“A lot of it, they let us ad lib, you know? We’d look at the script, look at what they wanted, and do it naturally,” Ebert said. “They’d always come back to us and ask us, ‘Does this look right?’”

He filmed his parts last year, from June to September 2010.

“There were three parts where I had lines, but only one made it into the film,” he said. “There’s a lot of parts where I’m present for the scenes, but I don’t have lines.”

Ebert and his wife attended the film’s premiere in Oakland on Monday, sitting in the row in front of Pitt.