So something must certainly be up when, on the mound as aging,
aching Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel, he merely gazes at the
scudding clouds.
“For Love of the Game” is the splendid title of Costner’s new
baseball movie, which is in every respect a romance. It is a romance
about a man and a woman, and it is a romance about baseball itself.
Real fans surely must be tougher on pro ball than this movie is.
In “For Love of the Game,” lip service is paid to front-office
manipulation and corporate finagling, but there is no hint of the
nitty-gritty that turns
fans off — the endless labor negotiations, World Series-canceling
strikes, the obsession with absurdly inflated salaries.
It doesn’t matter. “For Love of the Game” is about the mythology
of baseball. Scratch those same demanding fans and you’ll uncover a
deep vein of honest sentimentality. Movies like this express big,
real emotions that people may be reluctant to put into words. That’s
one thing Hollywood movies are supposed to do for us.
Baseball isn’t the only field of dreams.
Things are bad enough for No. 14, right-
hander Chapel, the fading “heart and soul” of the Tigers, when the
movie begins. He’s 40, at the end of a lousy season, with old
injuries plaguing him, and now he’s got to face the fired-up Yankees,
who are one game away from the division title.
Before he makes the long walk to the mound, a pair of bombshells
drop. The Tigers are going to be sold, he will be traded (to the
Giants) and the departing owner (Brian Cox) urges him to get out
before it’s too late. Worse, his fashion-writer girlfriend, Jane
(Kelly Preston), is taking the long walk, too — out of his life.
The central action takes place at Yankee Stadium during one end-of-
the-season game. In his slightly rusty voice, Costner keeps up a
running monologue with himself on the mound. He goes into reveries.
There are flashbacks of the happy beginning and downward spiral of
his five-year relationship with Jane.
FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS
There are flashbacks, too, of Chapel’s proud parents (his father
was in love with two things, “my mother and baseball”) and of other
players: his catcher buddy, Gus; a Yankee batter who was a former
teammate on the Tigers; and a present one, an outfielder who was the
goat in a botched play.
He has no choice but to throw hard (“Chap, don’t throw it away
too early,” Gus warns him). Amazingly, as the innings progress,
Chapel appears headed for a perfect game. Simultaneously, in the
flashbacks, the relationship with Jane unravels.
It is impossible to think of anyone but Costner in this role. His
commitment and sincerity are never in doubt. Sincerity doesn’t
necessarily amount to much in actors — and it has led Costner down a
couple of unfortunate paths — but here it counts.
He is a perfect match, too, with golden-girl Preston (“Jerry
Maguire“), who has exactly the same gray-
blue eyes he does. Jane lives in New York, and he’s on the road. They
see each other when they can and talk a
lot on the telephone. But she doesn’t intend to be a groupie and
pretends to be nonchalant. “You do what you do, and I do what I
do,” she says.
He discovers that she had a daughter, Heather, now on the cusp of
her teens, when Jane was only 16 herself. Heather tells him her
mother “never had a love story — it’s like she doesn’t believe in
it.”
Director Sam Raimi, known for horror and suspense (“The Evil
Dead,” “A Simple Plan”), may seem an unlikely choice for an
inspirational sports romance like this. But it makes sense. The
baseball-diamond scenes are his centerpiece. He builds them with
tension and dynamism, and nails them down with telling close-ups. He
gives “For Love of the Game” such vitality that even some pat
supporting characters and situations don’t make interest flag.
COSTNER’S TOUCH
Costner has a nice touch with sardonic humor. He calls bulldog-
faced catcher Gus (John C. Reilly) his “wife” — “I have the
ugliest wife in baseball.” Refused entry to a fancy Manhattan art
opening, he asks, “What’s wrong? I don’t have enough black on?”
Jane is shrewdly presented as not interested in baseball. Not only
does it give her a life of her own, but it also gives those in the
audience who may not be fans someone to identify with. They won’t be
disappointed.
Sportscasters Vin Scully and Steve Lyons play themselves. Scully
explains what’s happening in his wonderfully supercharged rhetoric
(“Chapel makes his fateful walk to the loneliest spot in the world
– the pitcher’s mound at Yankee Stadium”) and also mentions it’s
been more than 40 years since he broadcast Don Larsen’s perfect game
in the World Series (in 1956), which is in fact true.
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