Natural Disaster
One of the All-Time Great Sports Movies Gets Brushed Back by a 'Rookie'
8/6/03
Throughout my childhood, and on into this nebulous state called adulthood, no movie has had a more magical ending than The Natural. The final game, which pits the New York Knights against Pittsburgh for the National League Pennant, is simply incredible. Roy Hobbs, played by Robert Redford, is heroic before he even steps on the field, miraculously leaving the hospital to come play in the game with a bullet still lodged somewhere in his stomach. However, in his first two at-bats, he looks ridiculously bad against Pittsburgh right-hander Youngberry (who looks disturbingly like actor Peter Stormare, a.k.a. the guy who throws Steve Buscemi into the woodchopper in Fargo). In Hobbs' third at-bat, New York is trailing 2-0 with runners at the corners and two out in the bottom of the ninth when Youngberry gets tired. His first two pitches to Hobbs are way out of the strike zone, and the Pittsburgh manager trots out to the mound and calls in left-handed fireballer John Rhoades from the bullpen. Rhoades, a "Nebraska farm boy with blazing left-handed speed," is said by the play-by-play announcer, who is narrating the entire scene, to have the best fastball in the majors.
I think we all know what ensues as Rhoades enters the game. If you don't, the movie came out 20 years ago and, frankly, I don't feel guilty about ruining it for you.
On the 2-0 pitch, Hobbs swings and misses. Lightning strikes in the distance, an omen of things to come. On the 2-1 pitch, Hobbs gets out in front and yanks it down the right field line. Home run distance, but foul. As he's coming back towards the plate, we see that Roy's bat, "Wonderboy," is broken. He turns to the batboy, Bobby Savoy, and utters the famous words: "Pick me out a winner, Bobby." Bobby, apparently unfazed by the incomprehensible pressure of this moment, waddles back to the dugout and returns with his own bat, which has "Savoy Special" etched into the barrel. As Roy and Bobby look at one another, the music begins to escalate, and you know something special is about to happen (I'll be quite honest, I'm getting chills as I write this, and the AC is definitely not on).
When Hobbs returns to the plate with his new bat and a 2-2 count, he's sweating like a hippo in a Turkish bath. He dabs at his forehead and tells the umpire he's ready to play. The Pittsburgh catcher notices Roy is bleeding around his abdomen (no doubt the old bullet wound resurfacing) and calls for an inside fastball.
Rhodes gets the sign, comes set and goes into his windup. There is a moment of tension before the pitch is delivered, anticipation hanging in the air and the pennant hanging in the balance. Rhodes brings it, and Hobbs connects fully, the ball colliding with the Savoy Special with tremendous force. For a moment, everything goes quiet.
The next thing we hear is the radio announcer's voice coming in as the ball sails away: "And it's spinning way back up, high over right field! That ball is still going! It's way back, high up in the air!"
Just as the ball hits the stadium lights, that classic music kicks in, and the lights explode, sending sparks flying into the air.
"He did it! Hobbs did it!"
In that same euphoric moment, a vendor in the stands is seen shouting "Oh sh-t!"
Hobbs rounds the bases to Randy Newman's incredible score of music, and the Knights go to the World Series. It is an unbelievable ending to a truly classic movie.
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Now forget what you just heard, and picture that scene this way:
When Youngberry goes 2-0 on Hobbs and clearly has nothing left, the Pittsburgh manager asks for time and goes out to the mound, calling for a left-hander, but it's not John Rhoades who comes out of the bullpen. Instead, in ambles Dennis Quaid, wearing stonewashed blue jeans and a grungy t-shirt, a slightly perplexed look on his face. Quaid promptly takes the mound and throws one devastating heater that cracks Hobbs directly in the dome, causing his entire head to explode and sending mushy brain matter splattering all over the umpire's face. Since no one knows what to do in such a situation, the game is called and Pittsburgh's 2-0 margin stands, allowing them to go to the World Series.
Get a good mental image of that, because it's basically what happened last week when Sports Illustrated published its list of the "50 Greatest Sports Movies of All Time."
I must admit, when I first saw this list, I was pretty excited. It's always fun to read lists and rankings; it makes for interesting conversation and debate.
When I began to read the list, there were a few movies I was curious about, but probably none more so than The Natural, it being among my favorite movies ever made. The first page of the list only showed the top 6, and they were all movies that deserved to be there: Bull Durham, Rocky, Raging Bull, Hoop Dreams, Slap Shot, Hoosiers.
Nothing to argue about there, I thought. I wonder whether The Natural is in the top 10...
Turning the page, it was nowhere to be found. When We Were Kings was number 10, and A League of Their Own was 13.
On the next page, I saw the first sign of trouble: a film called Pumping Iron was holding down number 21. This, I'm told, is a 1977 documentary about weightlifting starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno. I had to think that this film's inclusion on the list constituted the first time it was ever associated with the word "great." I made a mental note that this was one train wreck I would have to witness, and resumed my browsing of the list.
Once I got the disturbing image out of my head of a heavily accented, steroid-crazed Arnold flinging around 100 pound dumbbells, I became impatient and flipped all the way through the list looking for The Natural. At number 37 I saw a second indication that something might be rotten in Denmark: holding down that spot was a film entitled The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, which is apparently about a German goalie who goes berserk, kills somebody and then wanders around for a while.
Rounding out the top 50 was Best in Show, a hilarious movie that is not in any way a sports movie, and thereby should not even have been on the list. Even if you wanted to say that dog shows are sporting events (I myself would categorize them more as "strange exhibitions of obedience"), this movie is really not even about the dogs but is more about the demented people who train them. Calling this a sports movie is like calling West Side Story a documentary about gangs.
Having completed the entire list and now in a semi-panicked state of denial, I flipped back through the list again, certain that I had missed The Natural somewhere. At number 30, I saw it:
The Rookie, Dennis Quaid, 2002.
At this point I completely lost it. The Natural was not on the list, but The Rookie was? I found myself in a state of total incredulity (note to self: words like "incredulity" probably make me sound nerdy).
In all fairness, The Rookie was actually a pretty good movie. There were much more offensive picks on the list (hell, they even put Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury on the list, which, while pretty cool, is definitely not a sports movie), but something about The Rookie being included over The Natural particularly disturbed me.
Then it occurred to me: wasn't The Rookie just a modernized, Disney-fied, less interesting version of The Natural? Thematically, the movies are very similar: a one-time phenom now aging ballplayer rediscovers the game and reaches a new level of glory. The difference between the two films is quite simple: The Rookie just isn't as good, for a number of reasons.
For one, Quaid as a ballplayer is not even in the same league as Redford. In sports movies, whether or not the actors can play the game convincingly is crucial to the film's credibility. In The Rookie, Quaid has the look of a guy who worked very hard to learn to throw properly for his role as pitcher Jim Morris. To his credit, he does a commendable job, but he isn't really believable as a guy who can throw upper 90's heat. Instead, the movie relies on amped-up sound effects to make it seem like Quaid is throwing gas.
Redford, on the other hand, looks like a natural ballplayer, if you'll excuse the horrific pun. He is smooth and fluid, and has a classic left-handed swing. He looks like a guy who has played ball all his life; a guy who could roll out of a hospital bed with a bullet in his gut and swat a pennant-winning homer. Redford's classic style is much more believable than Quaid's seemingly forced effort, thereby making the baseball scenes in The Natural far better than those in The Rookie.
Furthermore, The Natural is just a much more compelling story. There is treachery and betrayal, licentious women and crooked owners, failure and ultimate triumph. It is an epic tale with mythical qualities and well-staged baseball scenes.
The Rookie, based on a true story, is about a baseball coach who discovers he can mysteriously throw really hard, is convinced to try out for the majors, and then is signed by a team in what was in real life nothing more than a PR move. The real "Rookie," Jim Morris, looks more like Newt Gingrich than Dennis Quaid and accumulated a 4.80 ERA in 15 innings over two seasons before being out of baseball. It is a good story, not a great one.
Toiling in the aftermath of this debacle, I have found myself asking one question: in the face of such a monumental and blatant snub, what is a tried and true fan like myself to do?
Well, the answer is quite obvious, I think. I'm compiling my own list of the "10 Greatest Sports Magazines of All Time."
Naturally, I'm leaving one of them out.
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