Let me preface this article by saying that I know fuck all about baseball. Yes, I know the rules, the positions, and understand the tension that can come during a game. I have sat by my friends, drunk and cheering a team during a comeback. I know what it's like to be rooting for the underdog during a classic rivalry and to see your team win. But when I say I don't know about baseball, I mean this: I can't refer to any specific play or player (outside of some really famous players). I don't know that so-and-so won the something-or-other during one of his worst seasons. To wit, I am not Ray Kinsella or Terence Mann, the characters in Field of Dreams with a nearly unhealthy obsession. I do not have a love of the sport the way many readers of even this magazine do.
When I was thirteen my grandfather took me to Fenway Park to see Boston play Cleveland. Nothing happened for seven innings. During the seventh inning stretch I declined a hotdog, wanting the whole song and dance to end so I could get back to a model of an X-Wing fighter I was painting. During the eighth inning I regretted not eating. I wandered out to find a hotdog, heard some cheering, and returned to learn that someone playing for the Indians had hit a home run. That game ended with a score of 1-0 and - fuck me - I had missed it.
This of course happened after I had been moved to Maine with my mother and brother. We didn't spend our early years in a town with a baseball team. Santa Fe, New Mexico, doesn't even have a AAA team. The fields we practiced on in Little League were basically dirt. And call it coach bias (I blame someone else) or my own lack of enthusiasm (I blame myself), I was consistently relegated to outfield duty with a, "We need someone with a strong arm to throw the ball in," or even one time, "Do you want to play at all?" (I'll return to this question below, veiled threat and all.)
If anyone can remember their Little League days in the outfield, they will remember standing absentminded in the grass, watching the game from afar as the sun set and parents began to arrive to pick you up, the light blending from orange to bluish gray, a Zen-like trance washing over your exhausted brain. And then your coach would yell at you to "bring it in."
So how does this sort of magical baseball feeling of standing out in a field compare with the truth of the competitive nature of the sport? I set out to discuss the serious gap between the realities of the sport as it occurs to me as a casual viewer and the romanticized fantasy it has become in modern cinema. As it turns out, some of these films really do have something fantastic to them and in a move right out of left fucking field - is that a baseball reference? - they all star Kevin Costner.
There are a lot of baseball films out there: The Sandlot, Major League, The Natural, The Pride Of the Yankees, Major League 2, The Bad News Bears and Major League: Back to the Minors. And despite a general assignment of "baseball on film," I ended up watching ONLY Kevin Costner baseball films. I kept hearing about how great Bull Durham was, hadn't seen Field Of Dreams in many years, and kept meaning to see For Love Of the Game, but never did.
Kevin Costner was apparently quite the gifted baseball player in high school and he has an obvious infatuation with the sport. Most people don't consider him a terribly gifted actor (at least not in the circles I hang around). He delivers lines in an almost wooden, emotionless tone more often than not. Then he takes the pitching mound or swings a bat and you feel like you're watching a professional ball player. And anytime he talks about baseball I feel like I really missed out on not cultivating more appreciation for it.
There's always a story behind the sport of the film, that carries a film, but it's rarely less important than the sport itself. For instance, in A League Of Their Own, baseball is simply the backdrop. I can't imagine that Rosie O'Donnell, Madonna, or even Geena Davis thought, "I would love to do this film because I love baseball. I don't even care that the script is a little corny." Nope. They were starring in a film about women's rights, not baseball. The characters are going through the motions of playing baseball, but there's no love there. No smell-of-the-glove, crack-of-the-bat action. Honestly, they may as well have been wrestling alligators. If you want a film about women's rights and equality, this is a good one. It would have been a great one if they were wrestling alligators.
Contrast that with how I imagine Costner preparing a baseball film:
Agent: I have a film for you that I think you'll be interested in.
Costner: Is it about baseball?
Agent: Why yes, actually, it -
Costner: What position do I play?
Agent: Pitcher.
Costner: What's the count at the bottom of the eighth?
Agent: Well, I don't know. Do you want to hear the story? It's about a guy who can't sort out his love life and he -
Costner: How many scenes with me pitching? Does my team win in the end?
For Costner, the sport is the story. I know a lot of people think the sex scenes in Bull Durham are really hot, or that James Earl Jones's character was dead the whole time in Field Of Dreams. Frankly, none of that matters. Like any passionate person speaking about a subject they love, I want to see it. A guy who loves quantum mechanics is almost always more entertaining than a great actor speaking about quantum mechanics while only pretending to love it.
That's why when you see press junkets about a film that will undoubtedly suck, the actors have to say things like, "You know, it's about this amazing character who blah blah blah and I love that thing too." Fuck you. You're an actor. You took a part. Now you have to pimp yourself out a bit to sell tickets. No hard feelings - that's just how it goes. But with Costner it's the reverse: "I think it's about a guy who has a love interest or something, but look at the count at the bottom of the eighth!"
I won't waste time recapping these movies in full. That would probably be redundant since this is a sports magazine. But here's a line on each: Crash Davis is a catcher assigned to an up-and-coming pitcher to help him reach the majors in Bull Durham; Ray Kinsella hears voices that insist he build a baseball diamond on his farm and the Chicago Black Sox (and his father) show up in Field Of Dreams; Billy Chapel pitches a perfect game while reflecting on his tumultuous life and career in For Love Of the Game.
Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, A Simple Plan, Spiderman) does a great job with For Love Of the Game stylistically, but Field Of Dreams is really the standout film here. Apart from reconnecting with some serious baseball legends and an isolated author from the beat generation, Costner's character is able to finally reconnect with his dad and "have a catch." You could say the whole thing is a bit cheesy, but it really touches a lot of people. Sons and their fathers either have special relationships they're reminded of when seeing this moment, or were never close enough with their dads to have that moment, and seeing it brings up some emotional memories.
In the "Special Features" section of the DVD the director talks about having Ray and his wife Annie maintain a functional and loving relationship. This film could have taken an entirely different direction if Annie had thought Ray was losing his mind or wasting their family's money (and it speaks to contemporary tensions in most of today's films that I assumed it would go there). Instead of, "You're out of your fucking mind. Let's get a divorce," you have Annie instead believing in her husband and supporting his decisions. I can't remember the last film I saw that had a moment even remotely like this: "I love you. Go out and accomplish your dreams. It will make us stronger."
Each film offers a glimpse into the human elements of baseball that are completely lost on me when I see it on TV today. I see free agents, corporate sponsorship, and upset players. When I see "teamwork" I think about how much each player is paid. How much more they're paid to win. I don't think about love or unity or any of the things at the beginnings of the Costner baseball films: shots of Costner as a kid practicing with his dad, Depression-era kids playing in alleys or listening to the game on a radio. But this is what people think of when they think of the "American Pastime."
Where does this disconnect originate? Why is it that people love a game that by my count already had its Golden Age? After all, modern players are all injecting steroids into their asses, right? Was Babe Ruth interested in acquiring a couple doses of Human Growth Hormone, a name that sounds so awful it could be its own horror film? The baseball gods of yesteryear seemed more concerned with the game itself than their own financial bottom line.
But it's not all their fault. I could be wrong, but I remember several media sources baulking at the idea of the corporate sponsored field when it started happening. Boston Garden became the Fleet Center. Comiskey Park became US Cellular Field. Fuck me that is the worst name for a baseball field I have ever heard. So is it any wonder that the way things are marketed and sold to the average consumer is meant to keep that consumer from thinking about the true magic of baseball? Of anything? Why should I go out and play ball with my dad when I can watch it on TV and be force-fed Budweiser ads? Or car ads?
Of course what I'm touching on here is not unique to baseball in any way, but it does help to explain why there are now two versions of it. There's the version you remember from your childhood, mildly sponsored by a local business, but heavy on just having fun and playing the game. And there's the new corporate whore version where statistics are god, magnificent plays really only affect your fantasy baseball game, and the sport of the sport is pushed to the background.
I don't want to be this cynical. Really! But lets be honest when we ask ourselves a few questions about baseball and Kevin Costner films: which one amplifies and echoes your fondest memories? Which one has turned into a kind of pornographic version of your childhood fantasies and dreams? Which one makes you want to go outside and have a catch? Which one makes you feels betrayed by amalgamated America? Which one makes you want to call your dad?
I'm not saying that baseball in its current format isn't worth experiencing. I've had some great times watching games and becoming emotionally invested. Perhaps that's something that can't be undermined by the commercial aspect of any sport. When Ray Kinsella and Terence Mann go to Fenway Park to watch the game they are waiting for a specific sign to appear. The game itself isn't what matters. What counts is the experience of sitting in the stands, drinking a beer, and having a hotdog. They end up with an emotional connection to an otherwise emotionless presentation of the game.
I remember watching the Red Sox defeat the Yankees in the playoffs at the end of the 2004 season. As the games got more intense there were more and more commercial breaks and it was almost like empty static. My friends and I couldn't care less about a single product advertised, just about getting back to the game. My upstairs neighbor ran naked down the street screaming his head off when the Red Sox won. In October. In Boston. That doesn't come from a love of statistics.
So you're in Little League and your coach wants you out in the outfield. You might give a groan or a sigh since you know you won't see any action. "Do you want to play at all?" Yes, I do. As baseball season begins and Spring Fever holds us firmly in its grasp, I think I'd like to go out and have a catch with my own dad. For some reason, to me, that sounds like the heart of what baseball really means to this country more than anything else. That and Kevin Costner baseball films.
[Zachariah is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. For the record, he loves postseason baseball if his town's team is doing well. To read more by Zachariah, check out his profile.]
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