MOVIE RANT: Rookie of the Year

I have no problem with outlandish story lines and far-fetched plots. It's Hollywood, and movies are best appreciated when the audience suspends their disbelief and accepts whatever's on the screen as a possible scenario. Films offer us a chance to use our imagination- stretch our concepts of what's real and tangible, and be taken away by a story.

I get that, I'm all for it. But what I can't stand are mistakes stemming from lack of attention to detail, especially in sports movies.

So while watching Rookie of the Year the other night, I was less concerned with the fact that a 12-year old was the focal point of the Cubs' bullpen than I was with the idea of Henry Rowengartner wearing blue jeans in his Little League game at the beginning of the movie.

You're kidding me- jeans? What self-respecting Little Leaguer shows up to his game rockin dungarees? Not one who expects to play, or walk away from the field without a wedgie, I assure you. "Man, I wonder why no one takes me seriously at baseball. I get no respect- I show up to games with my jersey untucked and wearing denim pants, what could be the problem?"

MiLB LIFE: Bus Rides

Minor League Baseball and bus rides go hand in hand. Bus rides are an inevitability of Pro-ball, resulting in some people even referring to MiLB leagues as Bus Leagues. You board the bus, you pick a seat, and you drive to your next game- it's up to you how you want to spend those next two, five, eight, fourteen hours. Just hope you're not next to the fat kid. Or the smelly kid. Or the loud kid. This is gonna be a long ride.

Regardless of length, I start every bus ride the same way. I board the bus about fifteen minutes before our departure time- early enough to have a wide variety of seat locations to pick from. I usually walk about two-thirds of the way down the aisle toward the back, selecting a seat to my right (the left side of the bus if facing the windshield). I aim for a seat exactly two rows behind a TV monitor, a distance I've found to be perfect for optimum viewing pleasure. I make sure no one has already laid claim to that seat, and then I unload all my goodies.

A bus ride is only as enjoyable as the things you bring with you. For instance, my bus ride survival kit looks something like this: latest issue of Men's Health, copy of Mind Gym (or whatever book I'm reading at the moment), iPod and headphones, Subway footlong or peanut butter sandwich, protein bar, pack of Stride gum, G2 Gatorade, water, family size bag of pretzels, sweatshirt, and, perhaps most importantly, a pillow.

MiLB LIFE: A Typical Game Day [Part One]

The daily life of a minor leaguer is far from exciting. Over the course of the 140-game season, each player will develop some type of routine that he will hardly modify or stray from during the entire 7-month stretch. Days are repetitive, you lose all grasp of current events in the outside world, and the concept of days of the week or dates becomes a lost cause- you find yourself trapped inside the bubble that is Minor League life.

From time to time you’ll try to mix it up in an effort to keep from going insane- wake up early for a round of golf, switch up your breakfast order, find a new lunch spot- but ultimately you end up back on your old routine. Your old, boring routine.

Here’s a look at a typical Minor Leaguer’s game day:

10:00 AM- Wake up
Wake-up time varies more than any other time on this list. Depending on the player, this 10 o’clock awakening is likely on the early side. The previous night’s bed-time and social activities are directly proportional to every morning’s start time. After working a desk job for five months, I gotta admit I’m looking forward to not having to set an alarm clock every night. (Although you’d be surprised how often kids sleep through 2 PM meetings or 3 PM stretches. Yep, that actually happens.)

10:30 AM- Breakfast
Most guys on the team find a particular breakfast place and stick with it. For me, it was IHOP. Almost every morning- if I was awake and if I didn’t have the great idea of ‘cooking breakfast to save money’ that hits me every few weeks- I would head to the International House of Pancakes with the regular breakfast club. We’d have our regular waitress, sit in our regular booth, and order our regular meals. It was borderline embarrassing how predictable it all was, but hey, it’s the routine.

We’d become friendly with the entire staff within a matter of days and we’d be putting them on the ticket list for free admission to games after about a week. We were there so often that they could tell when we were on a road trip and when our home stands were simply based on breakfast attendance. The food got old, but Cheers was definitely onto something: we all wanted to go where everybody knew our names.

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.)

Baseball Movie All-Star Game: Starting Lineups

With all the baseball movies that are out there, I have always wondered which characters are the cream of the fictional crop. Now Ray Kinsella might look up at me and sarcastically ask, “What’s a crop?” – but I digress. Baseball movies often tell the story of an entire team, but each team has their usual cast of superstars, and now is their time to be recognized among baseball’s fictional elite.

I have broken up the All-Stars into two teams, American League and National League- groundbreaking stuff, I know. There is no rhyme or reason behind which team a guy ends up on- there are even teammates that find themselves on opposing sides. I was trying to model a competitive game, and these are the players that I felt gave their squad the best chance to win. Now I must warn you, there will be some snubs, along with some head-scratchers, but that is merely a consequence of baseball movies featuring mainly catchers, pitchers, and outfielders as their stars and main characters- essentially zero middle-infield love.

Also, this list consists of all fictional characters, although I was tempted to place the two main characters from *61 in each team’s cleanup spot.

So without further ado, here are your starting lineups. (We will assume the game is being played at an NL park: no DH's.)

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.