Brad Pitt Was a Wrestler and a Diver – Never a Baseball Player

By Rennie Dyball

09/19/2011 at 12:30 PM EDT

He plays a baseball coach in the upcoming Moneyball, but Brad Pitt is anything but experienced in America's favorite pastime.

"It's shameful how little I know about baseball … I'm amazed they let me do this movie," Pitt, 47, tells Sports Illustrated in this week's cover story, which will hit newsstands on Wednesday.

"Baseball and I didn't get along that well," he adds. "I wrestled one year [in high school]. I dove one year. Everything but baseball."

What drew him to the role, says Pitt: "I'm a sucker for the underdog story."

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Pitt, who also graced last week's cover of Entertainment Weekly and Parade Magazine is one of just a handful of non-sports figures to grace the cover of the sports magazine.

Former cover subjects include Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Stephen Colbert, Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan, Steve McQueen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.