Sports
Open Court: Silver (screen) linings
By Nick Prevenas
When everything is said and done, I firmly believe that July 2007 will go down as the worst sports month of this generation.
The top stories these past four weeks have revolved around dogfighting, gambling, steroids, the mafia, corruption, deceit and Posh Spice.
As the monsoon clouds continue to obscure the sun and add to the gloomy nature of recent headlines, the recent inspired play of the Arizona Diamondbacks has kept July from becoming a complete lost cause for all Southern Arizona sports fans.
As always, I’ve been on the look-out for any way to keep my enthusiasm high and help me forget about these dreary, nefarious stories.
My DVD player came to the rescue.
When the real world starts to get me down, I dive into my personal movie library to find a reliably good sports flick with a happy ending and I’m back on my feet.
This week, the D-backs resurgence resulted in a baseball double-feature for “Prevenas Masterpiece Theatre.”
I started with Kevin Costner’s 1989 classic “Field of Dreams.”
ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons—a.k.a. “The Sports Guy” and an encyclopedia of sports movie information—once wrote, “The world can be separated into two types of people: those who loved ‘Field of Dreams’ and those who don’t have a heart.”
For those foggy on the details, the film is based on the fantastic W.P. Kinsella novel of the same name, and follows Costner (Ray Kinsella) as an Iowa corn farmer who turns his property into a top-notch baseball field, due to the instructions of a mystical voice.
Once he builds it, the Chicago Black Sox show up and toss the ball around for a while.
Terrance Mann and Moonlight Graham reconnect with a sport that brought them so much joy in the past, and the film concludes with Kinsella finally playing an emotional game of catch with his father.
I must have seen this movie two dozen times, and I still get a lump in my throat at least four times throughout the film.
It doesn’t even bother me that Ray Liotta portrayed “Shoeless” Joe Jackson as a right-handed batter when the real Jackson actually hit from the left side.
I followed “Field of Dreams” with “The Natural”—which was like having Lou Gehrig follow Babe Ruth on the 1927 Yankees.
Released in 1984, “The Natural” tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a phenomenal baseball talent who overcomes age, lightning and a silver bullet to become a legendary—almost mythical—hero.
Of course, everyone loves the final sequence where Hobbs shatters all the lights on his game-winning homer, but the little moments are what set this movie apart.
Hardly anything in sports—either in the movies or in real-life—can compare to the young Hobbs striking out “The Whammer” on three pitches, or manager Pop Fisher telling Hobbs, “Well you’re better than any player I ever had. And you’re the best (expletive) hitter I ever saw.”
To be honest, I just got goosebumps thinking of the scene where Hobbs breaks his “Wonderbat” and tells the batboy to, “Pick me out a winner, Bobby.”
If the harsh headlines have simply become too much to bear, I recommend a trip to the video store to revisit either of these two classics.
As Kinsella famously said, “Maybe this is heaven.”
nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747
The top stories these past four weeks have revolved around dogfighting, gambling, steroids, the mafia, corruption, deceit and Posh Spice.
As the monsoon clouds continue to obscure the sun and add to the gloomy nature of recent headlines, the recent inspired play of the Arizona Diamondbacks has kept July from becoming a complete lost cause for all Southern Arizona sports fans.
As always, I’ve been on the look-out for any way to keep my enthusiasm high and help me forget about these dreary, nefarious stories.
My DVD player came to the rescue.
When the real world starts to get me down, I dive into my personal movie library to find a reliably good sports flick with a happy ending and I’m back on my feet.
This week, the D-backs resurgence resulted in a baseball double-feature for “Prevenas Masterpiece Theatre.”
I started with Kevin Costner’s 1989 classic “Field of Dreams.”
ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons—a.k.a. “The Sports Guy” and an encyclopedia of sports movie information—once wrote, “The world can be separated into two types of people: those who loved ‘Field of Dreams’ and those who don’t have a heart.”
For those foggy on the details, the film is based on the fantastic W.P. Kinsella novel of the same name, and follows Costner (Ray Kinsella) as an Iowa corn farmer who turns his property into a top-notch baseball field, due to the instructions of a mystical voice.
Once he builds it, the Chicago Black Sox show up and toss the ball around for a while.
Terrance Mann and Moonlight Graham reconnect with a sport that brought them so much joy in the past, and the film concludes with Kinsella finally playing an emotional game of catch with his father.
I must have seen this movie two dozen times, and I still get a lump in my throat at least four times throughout the film.
It doesn’t even bother me that Ray Liotta portrayed “Shoeless” Joe Jackson as a right-handed batter when the real Jackson actually hit from the left side.
I followed “Field of Dreams” with “The Natural”—which was like having Lou Gehrig follow Babe Ruth on the 1927 Yankees.
Released in 1984, “The Natural” tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a phenomenal baseball talent who overcomes age, lightning and a silver bullet to become a legendary—almost mythical—hero.
Of course, everyone loves the final sequence where Hobbs shatters all the lights on his game-winning homer, but the little moments are what set this movie apart.
Hardly anything in sports—either in the movies or in real-life—can compare to the young Hobbs striking out “The Whammer” on three pitches, or manager Pop Fisher telling Hobbs, “Well you’re better than any player I ever had. And you’re the best (expletive) hitter I ever saw.”
To be honest, I just got goosebumps thinking of the scene where Hobbs breaks his “Wonderbat” and tells the batboy to, “Pick me out a winner, Bobby.”
If the harsh headlines have simply become too much to bear, I recommend a trip to the video store to revisit either of these two classics.
As Kinsella famously said, “Maybe this is heaven.”
nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747
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