As
in the “Major League” series, or “Rookie of the Year.”
YOU
LIKELY KNOW of the Major League films as the source of many one-liners that oft
get repeated as gags during baseball games. There even are moments when all
those high-tech video boards inside modern-day stadiums are used to show snippets
of them for laughs.
And it was the Major League series that gave us that eternal philosophical question – can Jesus Christ hit a curve ball?
Then,
there was Rookie of the Year – a film largely intended to be something that
parents can take their children to see. It tells the tale of a 12-year-old boy
who suffers a freak injury to his throwing arm that makes it possible for him
to throw 100-mile-an-hour fastballs.
Because
the kid supposedly lives on Chicago’s North Side, he signs a contract to pitch
for the Cubs. And supposedly leads them all the way to a playoff game, when his
arm supposedly snaps back into place and he begins throwing again like a
not-particularly-athletic 12-year-old kid.
ALL
IN ALL, a ridiculous premise. But no more silly than a film that answered a
ballplayer’s request to snap out of a hitting slump and sacrifice a chicken by
providing him with a bucket of Kentucky Fried.
Although
I always thought the Major League series, which uses the Cleveland Indians as
its heroes in humor, to be more absurd. The sequel film Major League II was the
low point – because it was the one that treated the Chicago White Sox as the
all-powerful team that needed to be vanquished by an underdog Indians squad.
Not
even the most drunken of Sox fans would ever think that their team was
all-powerful – except at offering up the best-tasting Polish sausage at the
ballpark concession stands.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment