MOVIE RANT: For Love of the Game

Despite serving as a secondary plot to the love story, the baseball aspects of For Love of the Game are pretty accurate. It's the little things, like the Tigers having home and away hats and the time Billy Chapel spends on the bike at Spring Training- that stuff is authentic. Costner's a baseball guy- he knows it's in the details.

One of the most ridiculous, yet usually overlooked, scenes shows John C. Reilly wearing his New Era 59/50 Tigers hat up to Costner's hotel room. You're a Big League catcher and you wear your game hat struttin' around New York City? I stopped wearing my team's game hat in public in Little League, and even then people gave me crap for it. Hey, better the hat than his catcher's helmet forward I guess. (Kinda ridiculous he's even in a movie where he's not screaming "Shake'n'Bake!" or wearing a Chewbacca mask.)

MOVIE RANT: Summer Catch

*I'd like to preface this post by saying that "Summer Catch" is just an awful movie. The Boston accents make me cringe, the baseball scenes make me wonder if anyone on set has ever played a sport, and the acting has me firmly believing that I could head to Hollywood right now, star in a movie, and become the nation's next heart-throb young actor..

Equipment is an area where a lot of movies lose their authenticity. For example, Freddie Prinze, Jr.'s glove in Summer Catch is too big. Way too big. He's supposed to be a bigshot pitching prospect and he's walking around with a slow-pitch softball outfielder's mitt. It's no wonder he got kicked off his college team with that Rick Vaughn replica glove. He walks off the field one out shy of a no-hitter to chase a girl (granted it was Jessica Biel, probably not a bad move), yet the size of his glove is the aspect of the movie that I find unrealistic. Attention to detail, Hollywood. You can have the most far-fetched plot in the world and I'll eat it up, unless you have a pitcher sportin' a 15-inch Rawlings. Clean it up.

In the same movie Matthew Lillard, who tries so hard to be funny it hurts, plays a catcher from USC who has some trouble adjusting to the wood bats of the Cape League. Sure, he's having a tough go but I think he gets a raw deal when in the FIRST GAME, after maybe two at-bats, he walks to the plate to the announcer saying, "Brubaker's really struggled with these wooden bats this year, he's had a real difficult time here on the Cape." He's 0 for 2 on the season! Ten seconds later he could've been batting .333. I would've turned around and flipped the announcer the bird right then and there. 

Lillard later breaks a bat over his knee in a tirade after striking out (1:32 mark). This is ridiculously hard to do. I mean really hard. I tried once and not only did I not succeed but I thought I broke my thigh in two. A Dominican on my team this summer did it, a brand new Maple M110. I'm still in awe. Forget stats, shit like that gets you to the Bigs.

One more critique: Freddie Prinze, Jr.'s character says "Come on Blue! Get off your knees your blowin' the game" under his breath on the mound after a questionable call. I mean come on. I thought that line was reserved for 12 year-old spectators trying to get a cheap laugh out of their buddies at the ball game, and even then the kids he's with are like "yeah yeah, good one dude..."

Some Hollywood nerd who's never played baseball definitely heard that line and thought it was pure gold, doing his best to force it into the movie with no regard for credibility. And then when the coach goes out for a mound visit, Prinze serves up that line's soulmate: "Does his wife know he's screwin' us?" I don't think I've ever heard one of those lines without the other being uttered immediately 2 seconds after, at most. Both just awful in-game chatter, laughable really.

(Check out the "Tip Drill" at the beginning of the movie's trailer. Are you kidding me? When have you ever heard of a baseball team- high school? little league? tee ball? wiffle ball?- tip a ball behind their heads and up to each other? What does that work on? How does that make you better? Was the only sports consultant available for this movie a former high school football defensive back? I can assure you every Chatam A would laugh in Coach Schiffner's face if he pulled that drill out of his ass for the team's first practice. Stuff like that gets you laughed out of the Hawaii League, never mind the Cape.)

MOVIE RANT: Field of Dreams

The most important thing about a baseball movie is its authenticity. The plot can be as far-fetched as you want - 12-year olds managing Major League teams, ghosts walking out of cornfields starting pick-up games, home runs breaking light-towers, pre-teens closing out games for the Cubs - it's all great. As long as it's entertaining and relevant to the story, I'm all for it.

BUT, it's the little things that bother me. While other people gripe about the unrealistic plots and storylines, I'm driven crazy by the lack of attention to detail in sports movies.

Field of Dreams, I love you but come on! I know Ray Liotta was perfect for the role but you're messing with history here. Shoeless Joe was one of the best hitters to ever live - (statistically that is- I think any good college player today could've been a Hall of Famer back then but that's an argument I don't want to start right now) - and he was a LEFTY. Consequently, as great as Ray Liotta was for the part, the second you found out he hits Righty you should have shown him the door. Eh eh, no way. Would have been great to have you, but we can't mess with that - we need a Lefty to play Shoeless Joe.

Or at least come up with a way to show a mirror image or something - God, make an effort. Don't just carry on and hope no one notices. Wait, what's that? Really, not one person actually noticed? Um ok, nevermind I guess. (Oddly enough, Liotta throws Lefty while Jackson threw Righty.)

But you're not off the hook yet, Field of Dreams. I hate to pick on it, because it really is one of my favorites, but the whole movie leads up to this epic Father-Son moment when Ray channels his inner boy and asks his father to "have a catch" - quite possibly the only moment in cinema history where it's acceptable for a grown man to cry - and whadda ya know? Ray's Dad has a dogshit arm! He's supposed to be this great catcher who played professional baseball for years, and Costner, being the actor-who-totally-wishes-he-was-an-athlete that he is, completely shows him up. The guy throws like a robot. I didn't even notice at first and then I peeked at how natural and fluid Costner was in comparison - what a joke.

What were the casting credentials for this character? He literally says four words in the whole movie - anyone who played high school baseball could have nailed that role - and they get a guy who throws like he's two weeks off Tommy John? "Hey, let's get that guy who was incapable of doing the only requirement necessary for this part! Oh boy, when it comes to ideas on how to possibly ruin the climax, that's a doozy!" That kinda stuff wouldn't fly on my set.