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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 11/18/2007 : 02:42:30 AM
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This dissection is dedicated to the memory of Joe Nuxhall.
This is the first time I’ve tried dissecting a movie while watching it for the first time. Just to see what happens. I’m gonna appropriate Ken’s [Future Ken:…] idea for this one.
Baseball and movies don’t mix. Sure, there was The Natural and Field of Dreams, and there were some classics like Bang the Drum Slowly, and reasonably accurate historical baseball movies like Eight Men Out. Pride of the Yankees is good except when Gary Cooper (a rightie), playing Lou Gehrig (a leftie) swings a bat. But there are also a slew of lousy baseball movies. The Babe Ruth Story was so bad that Ruth himself walked out of the world premiere. The Jackie Robinson Story, starring Robinson himself, is one the earliest demonstrations of athletes making for horrible actors. There was Fear Strikes Out, starring Anthony Perkins as colorfully bipolar big-leaguer Jimmy Piersall. Piersall himself disowned the movie for its inaccurate and exaggerated depiction of his mental disorder. There was The Natural-ripoff Tiger Town, a 1983 TV movie starring Roy Scheider. The 90s gave us a pair of bio movies in The Babe and Cobb, starring John Goodman and Tommy Lee Jones respectively, both of which are more fiction than fact. Some would mention Bull Durham as a great baseball movie, maybe the greatest ever. I don’t believe that, because its a romance movie with a baseball subplot rather than a baseball movie. I remember going to see the movie because I’d heard it was great, but I went away disappointed.
Why do baseball movies (in fact, sports movies, baseball or not) seem to be generally lacking drama even more so than most other movies? I would speculate that it’s because baseball is dramatic itself in part precisely because of its unscripted nature. This is true of all professional sports (unless you count WWE): The players don’t know what’s going to happen as they’re about to do it. They know what they want to happen, they know what they’re going to try to make happen, but whether or not they actually do it is unknown to them. When Robert Redford hit is homerun in The Natural, he did it because the script said so. When Bobby Thompson or Bucky Dent or Kirk Gibson or Joe Carter hit their homeruns, they didn’t know they were going to do it; they only knew that they were going to try to do it (and I’m not sure Dent really was trying). That spontaneity gives sports is excitement. Not so with movies. So a serious baseball movie is gonna have a tough time convincing baseball fans that it’s more worthwhile to watch than highlights on Sportscenter.
Since the late 80s, there have been a fair number of baseball comedies, the best of which is probably 1988’s Major League, starring Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bersen, Tom Berenger, and real-life baseball personality Bob Uecker, although it’s two sequels were unremarkable. 1993’s Mr. Baseball, starring Tom Selleck as an aging slugger who goes to the Japanese leagues, is not hysterically funny, but it is solidly entertaining. More recently, 2004’s Mr. 3000 starring Bernie Mac as an aging slugger who comes out of retirement to collect the two hits needed to reach 3000, might be good, but I haven’t seen it, so I dunno.
A recurring theme of baseball movies is that of the perennial losers who come under the influence of magical children and become winners. 1953’s The Kid From Left Field and its 1974 remake, 1951’s Angels in the Outfield and its 1994 remake, 1994’s Little Big League about a boy manager, and today’s subject, Rookie of the Year.
Why did I choose this movie for dissection? Cuz I’m in a stretch of overabundance of time (not complaining, hell no), and I saw it in the supermarket checkout rack. **shrug** It was either this or Legally Blonde.
The DVD box doesn’t give much hint on what’s to come. Starring Thomas Ian Nicholas as the kid, Gary Busey, Daniel Stern, and Dan Hedaya…nothing remarkable. This movie is about a kid whose miracle pitching lands him with the Chicago Cubs. Naturally. In every movie about kids joining major league ball teams, the team is always one that was horrid at the time of the making of the movie. The Pirates and St. Louis Browns of the 50s, the Padres of the 70s, the Twins of the mid/late 90s, and to a lesser extent the Angels of the late 80s/early 90s. Since the Cubs were already professional sports’ quintessential “lovable losers,” it’s no surprise to see them get the movie treatment like this.
Let’s see what happens. Here we go.
The title appears over an aerial shot of Wrigley Field. Good call, movie! The credits play over footage of preparation for a daytime ball game. Groundskeepers prepping the field, souvenir merchants stocking up, fans entering the turnstiles, etc. Very good! The soundtrack is a traditional orchestra with unusually heavy emphasis on the percussion section, almost military-like. Soundtrack by Bill Conti.
Credits complete, we cut to inside the announcers’ booth, where an uncredited John Candy is mock-gleefully telling all of the North Side that another losing season is assured. The first pitch of the game is going back, back, back, the outfielder leaps, close-up of his glove catching the ball at the ivy,…
…and the camera pulls back to a little kid in a Pirates cap and jersey giving his own playful commentary of his own catch. Artistry. His two friends tell him to hurry up, and he catches up to them and they dash through the streets of wherever. They’re pushing a baby carriage. They pass a 50-ish black dude who wishes Henry (that’s our hero’s name) good luck and asks after them what’s in the baby carriage. One of them shouts, “A baby!” Reaction shot of the black dude saying, “Damn!” Okay, at least it wasn’t overplayed.
They rush through crowded sidewalks until they run into Henry’s super-milf mother (Amy Morton) who asks what the excitement is about. Henry says that he might actually get to play today because the starter who he subs for is out. Mom says good luck, then tosses a tube of sunblock in the air for him. He fails to catch it, earning ridicule from his friends.
At the ballgame, the Pirates right fielder is having an asthma attack. The manager, who acts exaggeratedly drunk and blowhardy (more like a college football coach), pulls the right fielder out and subs Henry. In the bleachers, Henry’s friends tell each other that they can’t believe they’re actually letting him play. I can’t fault the movie for being this obvious about telegraphing Henry’s lackluster playing skills, because not everybody played Little League Baseball. I did, and I was always the right fielder. Why? Because that’s where the worst kid on the team usually plays. And I was easily the worst. I’d lose games in every way known to man, and half a dozen more that I invented on the spot.
A deep fly gets hit in his direction. He dashes back to the wall, bounces off the wall, sprawls face down in the grass, gets to his knees, can’t find the ball because it’s between his legs and the bill of his cap is in his eyes (giggleworthy POV shot here), finally gets the ball, gets up, and is so dazed from the collision that he throws the ball over the outfield fence instead of towards the infield.
Damn! I never blew a game that way. That was pretty f**ked up! Neat!
Returning home, he mopes a bit until Mom recommends he be a pitcher instead and sends him to do laundry. In the laundry room, he puts clothes in the washer, one of those washers where the opening is in front instead of on top. He grabs….I don’t know what that is, but I’m guessing it’s a solid piece of detergent… out of what looks like a box of detergent (I use liquid and powders, so I don’t know what that is). He then goes into fantasizing mode, giving play-by-play as he imagines he’s about to throw strike three and win the game for his beloved Cubs. The kid does do a nifty job of simulating a stadium echo effect when he announces his own name. This bit is drawn out long enough that I’m pretty certain that a visual joke is coming. He’s gonna miss the hole in the washer, knock something over, etc.
Nope! He pegs it in the washer and shouts “Strike One!” [Future Food: Strike One, Food]
Back upstairs, Henry mopes that Mom is going out again. Mom says, “It’s our three-week anniversary.” Henry is dejected. Memo to Hollywood: KNOCK IT OFF! What 12-year-old suburban kid is unhappy when his parent(s) leave for the evening? Does Henry feel that Mom is neglecting him? She doesn’t seem to be. She seems proportionately supportive of Henry playing baseball, and there’s no evidence that she ain’t a good mother. Granted, she didn’t actually come to the game, but that means nothing. My own mother came to about half of my games, and I wished at the time that she wouldn’t because I sucked so bad. So I’m not buying Henry’s dejection here.
Mom asks what Henry has against Jack, and Henry says, “He’s moving too fast.” Pretty insightful for a 12-year-old, huh? Right on cue, Jack arrives. A plain looking bespectacled man wearing a silk shirt with a hideous Technicolor design, he gives Mom a fancy necklace, and Mom is uncomfortably flattered. They kiss, and Henry gives his best “yuck” expression. Mom and Jack depart in Jack’s flashy red car. So Jack is the standard cinematic Boring-But-Wealthy Guy who does well with the lady in the first half of the movie, but then loses her when someone of lesser wealth but more excitement arrives. This subplot had better remain a subplot or I’ll be unhappy. I predict that Mom will dump Jack once Henry has become a sensation for the Cubs, and there will be no mention of the fact that Henry’s payday will obviate the need for Jack. [Future Food: Yup.]
Cut to a private school lunchroom. Henry and his two friends (I don’t have names for them, but one is a beefy blonde kid so I’ll call him Beef, and the other is a totally nondescript kid so I’ll call him Unbeef) are chowing down while checkin’ out the female chicks. A very very pretty girl named Becky is staring enticingly back at Henry. Beef and Unbeef tell Henry to go talk to her. Henry is uncomfortable and gives the usual cop-outs, like “She doesn’t really like me” (she looks pretty interested to me), “We have nothing in common” (likely), and “She’s not that hot.” I can relate to Henry perfectly, except in my case the cop-outs, save the last, were true. Beef is incredulous at the last, as well he should be because she definitely is pretty. Beef exclaims, “She’s stacked!” while holding his fingers about two inches in front of his chest.
Okay, I’ll admit. I laughed out loud at that, that was great. If there are more jokes tailored for the adults who are embarrassed to watch Family Entertainment, this oughta be okay.
Cut to the school ballfield, where a kid hitting fungoes makes fun of Henry, then hits a pop fly for Henry to catch. Henry notices Becky staring at him, then takes off for the ball in slo-mo. As he runs, we get a close-up of a dirty ball lying directly in Henry’s path. He slips on it, does an implausible almost-full somersault, and lands painfully on his arm. This scene could’ve been better. First, Henry notices Becky’s stare after the ball has been hit, rendering it impossible for him to catch up to it. Second, the ball is hit in a direction almost 45 degrees from where Henry is, so catching it would be impossible anyway. Third, when Henry wipes out, there’s a slo-mo shot of Beef putting his hands on his cheeks and his mouth open in shock, looking just like Macauley Culken, and who wanted to be reminded of him even back then? Fourth, two shots are used for Henry actually hitting the ground. One shows him landing on his outstretched right hand, but the next shows him landing squarely on his shoulder. Sloppy.
I really hope Becky isn’t a major factor in this movie, especially because we’ve already got a subplot to go with the potentially fun main plot. We don’t need another subplot that was boring to me even when I was Henry’s age. The DVD box says that the movie is just over 90 minutes long, and we’re exactly 12 minutes in when Henry takes a spill, so I’ll predict that Becky will pretty much disappear until the climax or post-climax, when she’ll be in the stands rooting Henry on. Maybe a glimpse of her during a montage or something. [Future Food: Pretty much.
In a doctor’s office, Henry’s entire right arm is in a cast. The doctor says he’s got fractures of the ulna and massive damage to the rotator cuff. That explains the two different shots of him landing. You’d have to land in two different ways to suffer that kind of damage. The only way to make the damage more consistent with the injury itself is to make the injury a more gruesome and realistic one. **shrug**
Brief montage of Henry at school with his cast still on. For some reason, he must keep his arm up like he’s constantly waving or raising his hand. And the montage shows his baseball team waving him at him all right-handed, and a classroom full of kids with their arms raised, and when they lower their hands, Henry’s is still raised. The teacher looks at him with a baffled expression like he’s never seen a cast before. That was silly. There’s an odd shot of Henry watching Mom and Jack kiss while he makes that same “Oh, puke” expression. He must really miss his father, although he hasn’t seemed the least bit fatherlessly unhappy so far.
Back at the doc’s office, Doc says that the bones have healed, but the tendons have fused with the humerus. (!!) Mom asks if that’s bad, and Doc calmly says it’s unusual. I’ll say! Comic book characters get superpowers over lesser stuff than that. And I think Doc should be more up front with Mom about the direness of this unique condition. If tendons fused with the humerus, that would immobilize the shoulder, or at least severely reduce its utility. **shrug** Whatever, we got a movie to show. The doc has Henry flex and rotate his arm. This is accompanied by cartoonish sound effects. Henry holds his arm up, the doc asks him to rotate it down like a pitcher throwing in slo-mo, and Henry winds up whackin’ the doc in the nose, prompting a less-than-hilarious ow-my-nose reaction from the doc. On the way out, Mom gives Henry a “cast-off day present.” Henry and his friends all shout “CUBS TICKEEEETTTTSS!!!!!” while Mom gives a convincing “Good, I finally got the little bastards out of my hair for a while” grin.
At Wrigley Field, the kids marvel at the place for a bit before taking their seats in the outfield. The place is must less populated than you’d think Wrigley would be for a day game. **shrug** Henry says the Cubs’ll will win because “they’ve got Steadman on the mound.” Cut to Steadman (Gary Busey), who is a graying 40ish guy,* and we can tell that this is supposed to be ironic. Sure enough, he gives up a gopher ball. Everyone starts chanting “Throw it back!” at the fan who catches it. Beef gets a smile-worthy line here.
[ * - Back in the early 90s, players continuing their careers into their 40s certainly wasn’t unheard of, but it was much less common than today; and even less common that a player would still be GOOD at that age]
In the owner’s booth, the movie abruptly gets idiotic. The owner of the team is a totally over-the-top senile guy who exults at getting a decoder ring in a Cracker Jack box. His…sons, or assistants, or something…exposit that “If we don’t sell out every game for the rest of the season, we are going to have to forfeit the franchise.”
Go to hell, movie. Just….go to hell. The whole miracle-or-the-team-will-go-bankrupt trope never made any sense in the first place, because no matter how lousy a team’s attendance is, they still turn a profit. Even the Kansas City Royals do. If this wasn’t so, then every major league owner would be spending money on their team like Steinbrenner does instead of treating their team like just another business. In addition to that, once again, this is the Chicago Cubs were talking about here. They put the lovable in “Loveable Losers.” They draw better than average crowds even when the team itself blows goats.
Major League did it much better. An uncaring owner wanted her Cleveland Indians to be lousy so nobody would show up so she would have good reason to move the team to Florida (shades of Jeffery Loria). Granted, there are probably holes all over that as well, but it’s nowhere near as goddamn idiotic as what this movie just gave us.
Back on the diamond, Steadman is somehow able to hear the kids chanting his name and sloowwly turns to look at them. For some reason, they’re now sitting down the first base line. Continuity, people. Steadman seems to take encouragement from the kids, bears down on the batter, and promptly gives up another homerun. The kids have teleported back to the outfield seats, and its Beef who gets the homerun ball. The kids exult, and everyone starts chanting “Throw it back!” Beef, realizing that the game is on cable, gives the ball to Unbeef,* who also doesn’t wanna embarrass himself and gives the ball to Henry.
[* - So far, Unbeef seems to be in the movie solely to be straight man to Beef. Beef gets all the good lines.]
Henry throws the ball….and it rockets all the way into the catcher’s glove with enough impact to knock the catcher off balance. Everybody in the park freezes. The players, the fans, the announcers. The guy who hit the homer and circled the bases is now right in front of the plate gawks at the catcher who gawks back, and the batter suddenly drops onto the plate and the ump calls him safe. Uh,….he woulda been safe anyway. The homer has already been hit. The ball’s no longer in play. Everyone screams in amazement at Henry, and he and friends scamper out of the park.
Cut to…I guess a couple hours later. The owner’s assistants (I’m just gonna call ‘em the Suits from now on, because they’re dressed in 1920s-ish suits) yell at each other in exaggerated “comic” fashion that they can’t find this kid, his name is Henry, and nobody knows anything else about him. One Suit says to the other that if they don’t find Henry, “you’ll end up selling wieners in the nosebleed section.” Fellas? Wrigley Field has no nosebleed section. It’s one of the smallest parks in the majors. That’s part of its charm. [Future Food: Everybody in this movie acts in exaggerated “comic” fashion, and it increases as the movie progresses.]
Cut to a backyard somewhere. Beef and Unbeef are wearing football helmets and sofa cushions as Henry tries out his miracle arm. Mom and Jack show up, Henry says watch this Mom. Beef and Unbeef panic and scatter, Henry fires a missle that shatters a next-door window. Cut to inside the house a while later on the same day. Jack is on the phone saying the Henry would be thrilled to try out for the Cubs. He hangs up, and Mom enters. She is worried about Henry, while Jack is thrilled. Mom in uncomfortable that Jack is thrilled. Mmmm….I’m with Jack on this.
Cut again to the Cubs manager, Sal Martinella (Albert Hall), knocking on the door. Henry answers and doesn’t know who he’s talking to, and Sal doesn’t believe that the Henry he’s looking for is this little kid (Incidentally, Martinella’s schtick in this movie is that he pronounces Henry’s last name, Rowengartner, differently each time). Then Jack shows up in his sports car that’s barely big enough for Jack to get into or out of. He introduces the two in a mildly clumsy/obnoxious way, enough that I now sense that Jack will be made out to be exploiting Henry, for which Mom will dump him later.[[/b]Future Food: Yes, although that’s really just a fine-tuning of my previous prediction][/b] Although I don’t see a problem. The kid has a dream that happens to coincide with the opportunity Jack senses. Henry is agog that the Cubs manager came to see him, he likes to play baseball, so what’s the problem with this?
On a practice diamond, Sal is watching Henry throw off-screen pitches that break 100 on his radar gun. Jack and a Suit are nearby. Suit is telling Jack that he wants to sign the kid and Jack to be his personal manager. He conspiratorially adds “and managers get 10%.” Okay movie. We get it. Jack is supposed to be exploiting Henry. Never mind that Henry hits the sky when asked if he wants to pitch for the Cubs.
On their way to a press conference, Suit introduces himself to Mom (and us). His name is Larry Fisher. So I don’t have to call him Suit anymore. At the press conference, the actor playing Henry does a solid job of acting totally antsy about the mob of reporters in front of him. One of them asks who Jack is. Jack introduces himself as Henry’s personal manager. When they turn their attention to Henry, he says to a puzzled Mom, “Didn’t I tell you that?” Okay, movie, he’s a creep. Fine. A pressman tosses Henry a ball and challenges him to prove that he can pitch. Fisher says that if they wanna see him pitch, come out to Wrigley. Reaction shots of various TV viewers (Henry’s friends, the bleacher bums, the doctor with bandaged nose) all going nuts.
Cut to the outside of Wrigley Field, where Henry approaches the Players’ Entrance. This is staged in a snappy little manner. We see Henry, Beef, and Unbeef from the back as they approaches a pair of giant steel door with the Cubs logo set hiiigh up on each one. Henry pounds on the door, causing a deep metallic ring. This is meant to be a play on approaching a sacred and lofty chamber of the gods or some such. But it’s not overdone. The movie could’ve gone overboard by giving it a soaring soundtrack to make sure everyone gets the visual pun, but it doesn’t. It’s cool, I like it.
When Henry is allowed in, his friends are told to stay outside. Players only. We get Henry-POV as Beef and Unbeef gawk while the iron doors slam shut, separating Henry from his friends. Same thing here, the movie is having fun with the concept of the Players’ Area being a place where only The Chosen may go. I like it.
In the clubhouse, the players totally ignore Henry. Henry gushes his adoration of Steadman, but he brushes him off. Henry’s dejected until he sees his locker with uniform hanging in it. The scene ends with Henry exiting the clubhouse wearing his Cubs uniform and cap that is many sizes to big for him. You mean that after all the media hype nobody bothered to tailor a uniform in his size?
A 30-second montage of fans entering the park and taking their seats. Announcers marvel at the sell-out crowds. During the game, Steadman is on the mound again, and Henry is yelling encouragement to him, which totally irritates Steadman. He gives up a couple of hits, and the crowd starts chanting, “We want Henry!” Fisher calls down to the dugout and tells the manager to put Henry in. I don’t think that’s how it works, but whatever. He puts Henry in.
Waitaminit. A pitcher doesn’t go straight from the dugout into the game, he’s gotta warm up first. He should’ve been in the bullpen for at least a couple of batters. Rubbish.
With a disbelieving expression on his face, Henry ambles to the pitcher’s mound. He approaches from the direction of the third-base side bullpen. Okay, so he did warm up. But it was edited so that it certainly didn’t look that way. I would guess that this was done because if we saw him warming up, it would lessen the thrill of his high heat when he starts pitching in the game.
On the mound, the movie gets continues portaying the experience as like unto walking with the gods. Henry looks up at the manager, and the Henry-POV shot makes the manager look like a giant bearing down on him. The manager leans into the camera and says, in a super-slo-mo deep voice usually reserved for demonic overlords, “Thhrrooww tthhee hheeaatt!!” This is followed by a crash of thunder. Damn! The camera pans in a semi-circle around Henry, and we see that Wrigley Field really was pretty well filled to capacity for this.
The New York Mets batter taunts Henry, saying “This one’s for Mommy.” Henry looks up at Mom in the luxury suite area (like he’d be able to see her!), bears down, and fires a fastball. The batter calmly rips it for a homerun. He taunts Henry some more as he circles the bases. Prediction: This batter will face Henry later in a crucial situation, and Henry will strike his ass out. [Future Food: Precisely, although that’s probably the easiest prediction to make.]
Henry hits the next batter with a pitch.
His next pitch sails over the catcher’s head for a wild pitch. The runner on first takes second and tries for third, but the catcher retrieves the ball and throws him out. The crowd goes nuts, as announcer exults that that’s the ball game, and the Cubs win 5-4. Hmph. I had assumed the Cubs were getting plastered again. No one had told us the score or the inning. The announcer is astonished that Henry gave up a homer, hit a guy with a pitch, threw a wild pitch, and still got the save.
While baseball’s save statistic is kinda ridiculous in that it allows for this sort of situation, what’s totally unrealistic is the idea of a runner trying for two bases on a wild pitch in Wrigley Field. Different parks have a different amount of space behind home plate, and Wrigley has very little room between home plate and the wall behind it. Now, had it been at Yankee Stadium, where there’s enough room to land a helicopter behind home plate, I might be able to buy it. Not at Wrigley, though.
In the clubhouse after the game, the manager assigns Steadman the task of teaching Henry to pitch. Steadman resents the assignment, but seeing as how he’s not good for anything else on the team, he gives in. This scene also highlights the team’s pitching coach, played by Daniel Stern. This guy was in a couple scenes before, but I didn’t mention it because it was just fluff scenes of him being goofy. In this scene, though,….is it possible for a comedy to have an OCR? If so, this guy is it. He bugs his eyes out at all times, he’s always twitching and spastic, he speaks in a faux-redneck voice, and he’s totally oafish. Even for a kids’ film, it’s annoying. Here, he goes on a spiel about icing the arm and heating the arm after the game. Apparently, he found a happy medium in Hot Ice: Heating up the ice cubes. Yuk yuk.
Cut to the school lunchroom, where Becky charmingly beckons Henry to sit hither. Henry and Beef simultaneously drop their lunch trays at the invitation. They sit down, and Henry and Becky seem to be hitting it off okay. Unbeef whispers (in that cinematic way: Loud enough for anyone to hear) to Henry to invite her to go boating with them. Henry is about to, but then the bell rings, and Becky takes off.
Cut to a lakeside forest, where Henry and Co. set to putting a new engine on their boat. After about 20 seconds, cut to them dashing off while Henry says he’s gonna be late for practice. Okay.
Cut to Wrigley, where the team is practicing. The pitching coach is giving batting pointers (?) and mugging up a storm. Each ball he hits strikes the top of the cage and conks him on the head and he mugs some more each time. It’s funny. My ass. The managers tells Henry to get to work on his throwing and fines him $500 for being late. Henry gets a cute line here. He throws a pitch, throws another, the ball sails in….
….and cut to the ball being crushed by a Giants batter for a homerun. This Cubs pitcher is disgusted with himself, and the sell-out crowd starts chanting “We want Henry!” Uh, after his previous outing, there’s no way they’d want Henry. The manager goes ahead and puts Henry in.
I’m not buying the sell-out crowd thing. If it’s Henry’s presence that’s bringing them here (and the movie has made it clear that nobody was coming before Henry joined the team), then what happens if the starting Cubs pitcher has an excellent game, obviating the need for Henry to play? My point is that a star relief pitcher will not bring sell-out crowds every game. A star hitter can, because he plays pretty much every day. A star starting pitcher can when it’s his day to pitch. A relief pitcher does not bring sell-out crowds, because it’s unknown if he’ll be pitching that day.
The announcer (for an uncredited role, John Candy is getting a good amount of lines) exposits that the manager is showing confidence of Henry after yesterday’s near-disaster. On the mound, the manager gives Henry the ball and walks away muttering, “I gotta be out of my mind.” Hilarious.
In the GM’s office, a suit from Pepsi is saying the Henry could be the choice of a new generation. He actually says that. He adds that if Henry does well, Pepsi will give him an endorsement. Jack is interested.
Henry’s first pitch hits the batter in the ribs. The manager tells Steadman to go talk to him. Continuity error: Steadman asks, “What do you want me to say?” The manager answers, “You’ve been working with him. Talk to him!” Waitaminit. John Candy just told us that this is the very next day after Steadman was put in charge of teaching Henry to pitch. So he’s been working with Henry for a couple hours, tops. Dumb movie.
Steadman gives Henry a load of psychobabble that Henry doesn’t understand, Steadman walks away asking himself what he was just talking about, none of it’s funny. This is suckin’.
Henry throws another pitch that gets hit to the second baseman, who turns the 4-6-3 double play. Henry doesn’t know it because he covered his face with his glove in shame as soon as the ball was hit. Uh,…who’s the fielding coach on this team? Henry is encouraged, the music starts to swell, and Henry proceeds to throw two strikes to the next batter. The crowd goes nuts in anticipation of another Cubs win, and Jack says, “C’mon, one more and we get the Pepsi contrast!” This is so the toilet paper in the men’s room of the theater understands that Jack is all about turning a profit with Henry. In the real world, athletes resent the hell of out that, I’m sure we all know that by now.
I’ll give the movie credit: When Henry bears down for the next pitch, I was half-expecting it to be another homerun ball. But nope, it’s strike three. The pitch actually knocks the catcher on his ass from force of impact.
Cut to looonnng after the game, Henry walks onto the field, and his two friends and his Mom are still in the now-empty seats. ?!? At the Oakland Colisseum, the ushers start shooing everybody out less then 15 minutes after game ends. I have to assume the same happens at Wrigley, or they’re would be fans literally camping out in the stands. Beef and Unbeef jump onto the field and begin having playful boyish fun on the diamond in the after-sunset evening. I guess someone turned the lights on for them. For some reason, Steadman is still around. Mom introduces herself to him, and I’m gonna be sick. Don’t tell me that Mom’s gonna dump Jack for Steadman. Steadman has done absolutely nothing to distinguish himself favorably in the whole movie. He’s a lousy pitcher, and his bearing is that of an old-school smash-mouth player, with only a cheekful of tobacco missing to complete the image. Movie, DON’T.
Cut to O’Hare airport, where Henry is leaving on his first road trip with the Cubs. This scene is for the pitching coach to entertain whoever the f**k finds him entertaining. On the plane, Steadman starts warming up to the kid. A super-milf Mom will do that, I guess. He asks Henry not to call him “Rocket” anymore, because he ain’t what he used to be after a previous surgery, and he doesn’t know what’ll happen if he throws full-tilt again, and he hasn’t tried for fear of blowing his arm out completely. Prediction: At a crucial point, Henry’s encouragement will convince Steadman to go all-out, and Steadman will, and it will be a key moment for both the Cubs and Steadman’s piece of mind. [[/b]Future Food: Strike Two, Food.[/b]]You see, movies about a kid turning a team into winners always involve the kid having a spiritually uplifting effect on the team as well. I don’t know why, but that’s how it always is.
In the hotel, the pitching coach gets another showcase scene, this one involving getting himself stuck between the two locked doors of the adjacent rooms. However much this movie paid for Daniel Stern’s services, it seems determined to get its money’s worth.
At Dodger Stadium, the announcer exposits that the Cubs are three games behind the Mets with 15 left to play. Henry strikes out a batter to end the inning. In the dugout, the manager asks him if he is good for another inning. Henry says yeah, and the manager says good, you’re on deck. Henry freaks out, he didn’t expect to have to bat. Uh…kid, what game are you watching? His face assumes a panicky expression as he heads to the plate. The batter who just struck out tells him that, “He’s throwing BBs today.” So the kid went straight from the dugout to the plate without being in the on-deck circle during the batter before him? Not only is that unlikely, but baseball rules prohibit it. There must be a batter on the field in or near the on-deck circle when his team is at bat.
Scared to death, he assumes his stance and tries to reassure himself by challenging the pitcher out loud to throw him something he can hit. The umpire then tells him to step into the batters’ box. Long shot reveals that Henry is still standing about ten feet from the plate. That was good, I gotta admit! Close-up of Henry’s feet as he finally summons the spunk to step into the batter’s box. He stands at the very far corner and doesn’t dare come any closer to the plate. I can relate to this. I was the same way as a kid. Scared of getting hit by the ball. With good reason, mind you. I led the league in hit-by-pitch in my first year of Little League.
Henry, Steadman, and Mom watching at home all inchant, “Omigod, omigod, omigod” as the first pitch comes in. Henry ducks it, and the ump calls ball one. At home, Mom screams at her TV, “You almost killed him, you STUPID….MOTHER….F”….before we cut back to the field. That was funnier than s**t! Just for how this super-milf Mom scrunches up her face as she hyper-enunciates each word. That kicked ass!
The second pitch comes in, and just insert the preceding paragraph here, because it’s a repeat of the last one. “omigod, omigod, omigod,” Henry takes a dive, almost-profanity from Mom. Movie, come on, I know kids will laugh at the same joke twice, but twice in 10 seconds?
The pitcher complains to the ump that with a batter this small, there’s no strike zone. He’s right, and that’s precisely why Major League Baseball has a height restriction. In 1952 (or maybe ’53 or ’54), promoter extraordinaire Bill Veeck hired a midget named Eddie Gaedel and sent him into a game to pinch hit. Wielding a toy bat, Gaedel walked on four pitches. Later, a rule was instituted to prevent this from recurring.
Henry walks on four pitches.
On first base, he starts making fun of the pitcher in a manner that in real life would have pitchers throwing at his head for the rest of his career. The pitcher tries to pick him off, the throw goes wide, and Henry advances to second. The next batter gets hit by pitch, and the next rips a double. Henry is so in shock that he forgets to start running until the runner behind him is right behind him, and the two of them cross the plate a fraction of a second apart. Everyone goes nuts. Mom bangs her head on an overhead light, almost conking herself out.
Montage time! Shots of Henry on the cover of SI, Henry and Steadman hitting it off, Jack signing the endorsement with Pepsi (Boo!…I guess), joyful Cubs fans, and a trio of celebrity cameos. First it’s Bobby Bonilla striking out. Then it’s Pedro Guerrero striking out. I’ll never get used to him without that big mop of hair he had in the early 80s. Then it’s Barry Bonds striking out. As you can imagine, this was a shot I had to rewind, just to see how skinny Bonds is and how his batting helmet is actually a bit too big for his head. Good God.
Incidentally, this trio of cameos is not footage from actually games. These were filmed exclusively for this movie. Pretty cool!
The montage ends as the Cubs arrive home from the road trip. Henry is mobbed at the airport by the press. Seeing that Henry and Mom can’t get to each other, Steadman escorts Henry through the crowd, then the three of them run to a limousine and drive off. Steadman wants to be dropped off at the next terminal, but Henry and Mom insist of letting them get him home. Oh no. This is what I was afraid of. Movie, I ain’t buyin’ Mom and Steadman as a pair, I just ain’t.
Henry pours a pair of club sodas, Mom and Steadman say cheers, and Henry puts on some romantic music. You little s**t.
Cut to a dance club where the team is having a bash. Mom and Steadman are slow-dancing while Jack looks on in obvious envy. Elsewhere in the club, the irritating pitching coach is telling Henry that they’re gonna live in the fast lane and have a great time. He approaches two super-hot babes and blurts an exaggerated, “Scuse me, ladies.” When they give uncomfortable hellos, he repeats, “SCUSE ME, LADIES.” They move out of his way, revealing a pinball machine behind them. Henry and Coach go nuts as they drop their quarters in.
Okay, I giggled at that. That was cool.
Back at the bar, Jack and Fisher (that’s the Suit who signed Henry to the Cubs in the first place) are talking business. Fisher says that the Yankees have offered to buy Henry for $25 million. Jack doesn’t like the sound of it, protesting, “He’s just a kid.” Fisher, noticing Jacks’ envy of Steadman, points out that with 10% of the deal, Jack can live the high life in New York and won’t need Mom’s affection anymore. All that needs happen is for Mom to sign the contract. The spiel works, and Jack agrees to do it, but only on the condition that Fisher “Get rid of Chet Steadman.” Uh, Jack…if Mom falls for the charms of a gruff pitcher at the end of his career, how resistant do you figure she’ll be against the charms of Don Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Roberto Kelly, et al? And just wait a couple years ‘til Derek Jeter shows up. Mom’ll be all yours then, right Jack?
Brief bit at the lake where Beef and Unbeef are waiting for Henry. Beef expresses envy of Henry and Unbeef tells him to mellow out. Mmm…going through memory, I can’t recall any time this came up in kid-in-the-majors movies came up, so I don’t know how it’ll play out. I’ll predict, though, that they’ll all make up in the end and be friends forevermore. [Future Food: Correct except much earlier than expected.]
Cut to a soundstage where Henry is filling in for Ray Charles in a Diet Pepsi commercial. You remember those, where Charles was at the piano and he and the hot chicks sang a dumbass ditty about Diet Pepsi, ending with “You got the right one baby. Uh-huh.” Henry’s doing only marginally better than Rocky Balboa did during the cologne ads. Jack asks Mom to sign “Henry’s contract” without mentioning that it’s a selling of Henry to New York. Mom isn’t paying attention, so she just signs it by rote without even reading it. Ditz.
At the lake, Henry arrives out of breath and apologizes for being late. Beef is having none of it. He pitches a jealousy fit, and he and Henry wrestle on the ground while Unbeef screams at them to stop. Although they all seem pretty serious, this scene must be played for laughs, because Unbeef gets tossed through the dirt as much as Beef and Henry, and nobody actually throws any punches, and right in the middle of the prepubescent wrestlemania action….
….we cut to a rain delay at Wrigley Field. The manager calls Steadman into the office, where Fisher, honoring his part of his deal with Jack, tells Steadman that his performance sucks, so he’s being benched for the rest of the season, then released at season’s end. Waitaminit, how is benching him for the rest of the season removing Steadman from Mom’s attention? He’s still physically there. And if you’re gonna release him, why not just release him right then and there? Or place him on waivers? Or option him to the minors?
Steadman storms out of the room, and tells Henry to come on, I’m taking you home. In Steadman’s Corvette, Steadman somberly tells Henry to enjoy the game while he’s still in it, because it won’t last forever.
At home, Steadman cusses Henry out for not going to a photo shoot he had scheduled. Henry starts cussin’ him out right back, Jack gets on a power trip and says that Mom doesn’t even know who Henry’s father is, Mom overhears it, she and Jack scream at each other, with Jack saying that he owns, owns, I say!, half of Henry, and Mom punches him in the jaw which sends him tumbling down the front porch stairs. The only remarkable thing about this scene is that it features the most obvious stunt-double I’ve ever seen. For a split-second, I wondered if it wasn’t another mid-scene cut-away to Henry falling down stairs. It’s that obvious.
Mom and Henry exult in exaggerated comic fashion. I hate exaggeratedly comic fashion, have I told you that? It was here that I started watching the clock. We’ve still got about 25 minutes left. Then Mom gets serious and sits Henry down. She begins to speak about Henry’s father, and I hit the pause button to tell you that if Steadman turns out to be Henry’s father, I’m gonna throw something. Okay, let’s hear it, Mom.
Mom starts stammering about the father, but Henry cuts her off by saying that he already knows that his father ran off as soon as Mom got pregnant. When Mom asks how he knew, Henry answers that Grandma told him all about it when he was in second grade.
**sighs…rubs forehead…points a cautionary finger at the screen** You almost blew it, movie.
Cut to the lake. Henry has a glare-off with Beef and Unbeef before they spontaneously decide it’s all good. Montage of the three of them boating to their hearts’ content, going to the beach where Becky and her friends sunbathe. The chicks get on board with the guys, and we’ve got a 80s Hamm’s beer commercial for kids going on. I coulda done without the generic pop song that plays during this, though. I don’t know who it is.
Cut to the Cubs front office, where the owner exposits to Fisher that the Cubs might actually win the division today. Henry enters with Mom and tells the owner that he won’t be back next season because there are other things in life he wants to do first (Given what happens later, I don’t know why the movie bothered with this). The owner takes it in stride and wishes Henry the best. Henry then asks why he wanted to let Fisher sell him to the Yankees. Fisher bugs his eyes out, Fisher tells the owner it was just spec, and the owner tells Henry to go win the division today, and when Henry leaves, the owner turns to Fisher with a well-now-what-are-we-going-to-do-with-you? air.
In the clubhouse, the manager tells Steadman that he’s the starting pitcher for today. This is dumber than dogs**t. Barring spur-of-the-moment injury (like Greg Maddux’s vomiting fit on the day of Game 1 of the ’99 World Series), the manager knows who the starting pitcher of the game is going to be well before gametime and usually several days in advance. The manager offers no such explanation here when Steadman asks. He says, “Big game like this, I gotta go with experience.” Uh…yeah, experience that you yourself had no problem benching for the year a couple scenes ago and hasn’t done much for you all year. On top of that, even by ’93, when this movie was made, pitchers were already solidly divided into starting pitchers and relief pitchers. Starting pitchers only relieve in the most crucial and dire of conditions, and relievers almost never start, barring multiple starters being injured. There’s been no such mention of this. So I’m not buying this crap. I’m guessing this is there so Henry’s previous encouragement to Steadman about throwing full-blast again can be invoked to provide Steadman inspiration that will last until he has to come out so Henry can save the day. [Future Food: Nope, but I had already erroneously predicted that earlier.]
Oh, and the scene ends with another stupid bit with the pitching coach locking himself in an alcove of the room while retrieving his lucky sunflower seeds. Duh-huh.
In the announcers’ booth, John Candy screams that this is for the whooooole enchilada, the whooooole magilla, ad nauseum. Then he says, “This is for the division championship! The loser goes home a loser, the winner goes on the World Series!” He then comments that he always wanted to say those words on the air, “World Series.”
I was expecting the punch line to be somebody pointing out to him that the winner of the division championship does not go on the World Series, they go on the League Championship, and then the World Series. But the movie cuts away to the Cubs dugout. Maybe it’ll return to this, but if not, that’s a pretty dumb error. [Future Food: The latter.]
The game begins (It’s against the Mets. Remember what I predicted about the guy who homered off Henry’s first big-league pitch? I’m certain of it now). Steadman strikes out the first batter on three pitches, and things seem to be going okay for the Cubs. In the fourth inning, a Cubs batter lashes a grounder that slips past the second baseman, allowing the runners on second and third to score. John Candy announces, “Mullen lashes one into left!” Nope, it was lashed into center. Pay attention, movie!
Btw, all of Candy’s scenes are in the same announcer’s booth. So my guess is that he probably filmed all of his stuff in one day.
Later in the game (how much later I don’t know. This movie is kinda sloppy about the passage of time), Steadman is wearing out. He gives up an RBI double, and grimaces in pain. Candy exposits that the Cubs lead is now 2-1. After a wild pitch and a walk by the increasingly fatigued Steadman, the manager yells from the dugout that Steadman is coming out.
?!?
When a manager is going to take a pitcher out, first there’s gotta be somebody warmed up in the bullpen, and the manager doesn’t shout at him from the dugout that he’s done, the manager comes out to the pitchers’ mound to send him off and give advice/encouragement to the incoming pitcher. Garbage!
Steadman pleads to face just one more batter. The manager relents and grants him one more batter. Jesus, this is idiotic.
There’s also a shot in the stands of Fisher now selling hot dogs. Can’t wait to see how ESPN covers that. And good luck to the owner in his quest for a GM who will work under him for a reasonable salary.
The music gets all dramatic and serious as Steadman bears down. He rears back, throws a fastball, and we go into slo-mo for this entire play. Something goes **crack** in his arm. The batter connects and shatters his bat. Steadman fields the grounder, but is in too much pain to throw the ball. The runner on third takes off for home. Steadman instead runs towards home with the ball, and tags the runner out himself a split-second before the runner crosses home.
If this wasn’t a comedy, I cry bulls**t. But since this is a comedy, I guess this’ll stand. It’s no more ridiculous than the climax of Major League, that’s for sure.
Back in the dugout, the manager congratulates Steadman on six great innings (that’s our scoreboard, I guess), and tells him to get ready for the playoffs. Steadman says that his career is over because he felt his arm go. The manager looks surprised, although he has no reason to. He saw Steadman clutching his arm in pain. What did he think happened? **shrug** He tells Henry that he’s going in. Goddamn, movie. Bullpens!!!.
Montage of Henry’s performance as he strikes out one batter after another. I have a hard time believing that the pitch he throws at 1:25:11 could’ve come anywhere near the strike zone. And at 1:25:28, the close-up of what is supposed to be the leg of a Mets batter is actually wearing the Cubs’ white with blue pinstripes.
After striking out the side in both the seventh and eighth innings, Henry gleefully trots out to the mound for the ninth. Everybody in the place goes nuts, but Henry slips on the ball that’s lying near the mound. Just like the accident that gave him his super-arm in the first place. He takes an improbably dramatic somersault in the air and lands on the arm with a sickening crack.
The place falls silent for a bit. When the manager shouts if Henry’s okay, Henry gets up and says he’s fine. But when he starts warming up for the next batter, his arm’s power is gone. He’s back to normal, and he’s terrified. The Mets batter steps in. The Cubs catcher signals for a fastball, but Henry shakes it off. After repeating that a few times, Henry throws a lob that in a real game would be taken for an intentional ball. He repeats this until he’s thrown ball four, and the Mets have the leadoff man on base.
At this point, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I’ll hand it to the movie, this turn of events caught me completely off-guard. I figured the movie might end with Henry losing his ability, but I didn’t figure it’d be at a key moment of the game. I can’t guess how this will end. One thing I will guess is that it will involve something that’s totally implausible even by this movie’s standards. [Future Food: F**k yeah.] For example, even now, the fact that the manager is not immediately getting another reliever ready is ridiculous. In fact, the movie seems to be ignoring the fact that a team has more several relief pitchers, and since Steadman was the starter and Henry came in when Steadman came out, then the Cubs oughta have at least three more relievers who can take over (once they get warmed up, that is).
Henry calls in the infield in. He says that he can’t throw hard anymore, but he has plan. Dramatic music starts playing to obscure whatever he’s telling his teammates. He seems pretty sure of himself, although if a ball should get hit to an outfield gap, I don’t see what good this infield plan of Henry’s will do. There’s a long shot of the players leaving the mound and returning to their positions, and I froze it here and counted nine of them.
You mean Henry brought in the infield and the outfield for a conference?!? No umpire in the league would allow that. Hell, if a manager is at the mound for longer than the ump is comfortable, he’ll come out and tell the manager to get lost.
The game resumes. Henry looks at the runner taking his lead off first, who glares back. Henry tosses the ball in the air, which lands with a puff of powdery smoke. It’s not the ball, it’s the resin bag! Realizing he’s been duped, the runner scampers back to first, but too late! The ball was in the first baseman’s glove, and he tags the runner out. The hidden ball trick. Okay, that was nifty. It woulda been more realistic if the first baseman had tagged the runner out as soon as he set foot off the bag, but that’s okay, because if he’d done that, the parents in the audience who aren’t into baseball wouldn’t have known what had just happened.
Incidentally, this brings up a neato coincidence. The only time I’ve ever actually seen the hidden ball trick pulled off was in 1990, when Don Mattingly pulled it on Tony Pena. Just a couple weeks ago, Mattingly and Pena were competitors to be the next Yankees manager when Joe Torre was released and became manager of the Dodgers. They both lost to Joe Girardi, and are now coaches under Torre with the Dodgers.
Henry walks the next batter intentionally. Once on first, the batter-now-runner stays close to the bag. He ain’t falling for the hidden ball trick. Henry looks at the runner, then drops the ball, which rolls off the mound and comes to rest on the grass.* He then dares the runner to try to take second. He calls him a chicken, tosses the ball in the air, and makes clucking noises. Sufficiently riled, the runner challenges Henry to throw the ball in the air again. Henry makes to do so, the runner takes off for second, but Henry only faked the throw. He’s still holding the ball! He gets the runner in the run-down, and improbably makes the tag himself. Does the kid have super-legs, too? There’s no way his 12-year-old legs would be able to catch up to him from where they both started. Would it have been that much of a loss of “drama” to have Henry actually make a throw to the second baseman, and him to apply the tag?
And the whole scene is just idiotic. I imagine that in the theaters, the reeaall little kids were eating this up while the adults were falling silent and just waiting for this to end.
[ * - It’s a little-known rule, but dropping the ball while standing on the pitchers’ rubber is an automatic balk, which advances the baserunners one base. In fairness, the only time I’ve seen it used was in 2000 when John Rocker did it, and after the game there were several players on both teams who said they’d never heard of that rule; and it’s inconclusive from the angle whether Henry is actually on the rubber and not off it (sound like a NFL ref, don’t I?)
As I figured, the Mets’ last chance is Henry’s tormentor from earlier (Heddo is his name, but it’s only mentioned now). For some reason, Henry acts totally surprised by this. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t know that Heddo was due up this inning, unless Heddo was put in as a pinch-hitter, and we never heard him announced as such. So Henry came up with this brilliant strategy of his without knowing who he’d be facing? Maybe it’s for the better that Henry is leaving the team after the season.
Close-ups of Heddo confidently settling into the batters’ box. Popping knuckles, flexing biceps, etc. He even growls, “I’m your worst nightmare!” The catcher signals fastball. Henry shakes his head in terror. The catcher shouts, “He can’t hit your fastball!” Henry throws another weak lob that Heddo takes a massive cut at and misses for strike one.
Rubbish. Had Henry done this before blowing his arm out, it’d be perfectly plausible. That’s what changeups are all about: Fooling the batter with a slower pitch than expected. But Heddo must’ve seen Henry land painfully on his throwing arm and then throw four unintentional lobs and four intentional lobs. So it’s impossible to believe that Heddo’s gonna be fooled by this for long.
The movie knows it, too, because Heddo crushes the next lobbed pitch 400 feet in both dimensions. But it goes juuuust foul for strike two. That’s better, movie, THAT I can believe.
Henry goes into another of his stare-around-the-stadium-with-slackened-jaw routines while saying, “What do I do?” Treacly piano music plays here. C’mon, get on with it. Fake an injury and let someone else deal with Heddo if you’re that uncertain. He looks at the Rawlings label on his glove. I thought this was Henry reflecting on his last pitch as a big-leaguer, but instead he notices the label is loose. He pulls the label off (at which Mom smiles from the stands, as if she could see what he’s doing) and sees “MARY” written underneath. He looks at Mom (super-eyes, I guess) and says, “It was you?” Mom answers, “It was me.” (congenital super-eyes and ears, I guess). Mom then recommends that he “Float it.” Uh…what game you watchin’, Mom? Heddo came inches away from homering the last time Henry floated it.
Reassured, Henry throws the label away and prepares to pitch. BULLS**T!!! If a pitcher did that, the entire umpire crew would be out at the mound demanding that he empty his pockets and checking underneath the bill of his cap and looking for any suspicious stains on his hands and uniform and having him throw practice pitches to ensure that he isn’t doctoring the ball with a foreign object.
He throws an Eephus pitch. He just lobs it up in the air in a massive arc. Heddo swings and misses for strike three, and Wrigley Field explodes in gleeful mayhem. I’ve never actually seen an Eephus pitch, but I know that Dave LaRoche had some nifty success with it, especially against Gorman Thomas (of course, Thomas was a whiff-king, so that might not be saying much). As the Cubs lift Henry on their shoulders, he lobe the ball in the air again…
…and it is caught at the outfield wall but a Pirates-uniform-clad Henry as he races back in after catching the final out of a Little League game. Mom is there to congratulate him, as is Steadman, who manages the Pirates, and Becky, Beef, and Unbeef. Just as I was wondering if the whole movie was a dream or something, Henry looks into the camera and thrusts his fist into it. The camera freezes on his fist, and on the middle finger is a World Series ring. Well timed, I gotta say!
Roll credits.
Hm. When Henry sees “MARY” written on the glove and looks at Mom, I thought she had actually done something that would get Henry out of this. So it was kinda underwhelming. I was totally baffled as to what bit was supposed to mean. Now I think I do, and it’s even more so. I didn’t mention it, but there were two very brief mentions of Henry’s absentee father having been a pitcher, stories that Mom admits were bogus when he told her he already knew his father was nowhere. I didn’t think it was relevant. It wasn’t, except to this bit. If I’m not mistaken, when Henry asks, “It was you?” he’s realized that Mom was a ballplayer.
I think.
That’s still underwhelming because it never enters into anything except Mom’s suggestion to “Float it,” which is not an impressive suggestion since by at that point, floating it was all Henry could do.
As for the last shot: While it was excellently timed, I still have a feeling of having witnessed a blasphemy. You wanna do a movie about the Cubs doing something impressive, fine. You wanna imply that the Cubs won the World Series?!? Burn.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
It’s a fun little family film. I laughed out loud a couple times, and I’m sure kids would laugh at the stuff I hated. My 5-year-old nephew is already into baseball big-time. I’ll give this DVD to him. His mother likes watching Family Entertainment, so it’ll probably go over well in their house.
Less than two days ago, Joe Nuxhall, who holds baseball’s all-time record for being the youngest man to ever play in the majors, died at age 79. He was just shy of his 16th birthday when he took the field as a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds on June 10th, 1944. After some initial difficulty (including his debut, which was disastrous), he had a successful 16-year career. Following that, he was a radio announcer for the Reds from 1967 through 2004, and was well-loved by the fans as the voice of the Reds. A statue of him stands outside the Reds’ home stadium. He died on November 16, 2007 at age 79 from pneumonia related to throat-cancer. Rest In Peace, Mr. Huxhall.
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Edited by - Food on 11/18/2007 02:52:06 AM
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 5:41:23 PM
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Nice review, it brought back a lot of BAD memories!
I played Little League and I got out as fast as I could! I don't know how it was where you played food, but here in Florida, it was cutthroat all the way. We had players who brought their personal grudges onto the field, even if they were against someone on their own team. Let me tell you, some of those pitchers and basemen tended to aim for the HEAD.
The Umpires were not much help except in keeping fights from turning into riots. They also enforced rules that were so obscure, I doubt that the baseball comission knew about them!
Anyway, another enjoyable baseball movie is "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars And Motor Kings" which is about a Black-League team in the 30s that gets banned from playing so they turn "barnstomers" to play exibition games against white teams.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 3:24:27 PM
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Thank you kindly, GH!
I played Little League in Spokane, Washington. It wasn't cutthroat at all as near as I can remember. Of course, we were a last place team both years I played, so maybe our opponent's were saving their throat-cuttedness for the good teams.
In the summer of '89, I umpired Little League games in Ripley, West Virginia. The kids weren't cutthroat, but the parents were. I was actually pretty good as a home plate umpire and got good props from the teams' coaches, so I was okay; but I did get to witness a few umps get screamed at by red-faced parents. The parents took it more seriously than the kids. |
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Rookie of the Year (1993)
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