I love baseball and I love my Texas Rangers. Josh Hamilton may say that I don’t live in a “baseball town,” but I know that, whether my team is winning or losing, I will always be there cheering them on.
Baseball is known as being “America’s past time” because it’s the oldest sport to have been played in this country. Football may get more attention but baseball, with its emphasis on teamwork and personal sacrifice, is the sport the epitomizes the American ideal.
There have been some great films made about baseball. This scene that I love comes from The Natural. This is a scene that captures the glory and the magic of the game of baseball.
Through the Shattered Lens 
A great baseball film. Hell, I like to think it’s the one film that really focuses on the mythmaking that has been ingrained in baseball’s DNA since it first became popular during the American Civil War.
It’s no wonder that the character of Roy Hobbs has become synonymous with baseball players who come out of nowhere to become superstars at a much later age. I know that Josh Hamilton himself was labeled a modern-day Roy Hobbs for finally making good on the potential that was seen in him, but which he wasted his early years in the league with drug and alcohol addiction.
The Natural, especially this scene, has become part of Americana. Even non-baseball fans know this scene and it’s importance in the American pop culture.
I still remember being a kid thinking I was Roy Hobbs and running the bases at the local baseball diamond and hitting one out pretending the lights were exploding overhead. 🙂
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I finally got around to watching “The Natural” last year, I believe, after finding it for a reasonable price on DVD. There it was, just sitting there, for (if I remember correctly) ten dollars. Stunned at my good fortune, I was, so I bought it straight away.
This is a film that I desperately wish to experience on the big screen. Those visuals from cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and music from Randy Newman are just amazing. It’s all done in a way that never lets you forget that you’re watching a work of cinema, a slice of romantic escapism. For example, the scene where Glenn Close stands up in the crowd at the baseball game, and there’s this incredible heavenly light shining behind her. It’s like you can almost see the crew member holding a big fat metal dish, bouncing light off its reflective surface in order to create the effect, it was done so heavily, but you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. The worst thing this film could have done was tone down its more fantastic touches.
I know that some people (read: hardened cynics) might not like the final scene, but anybody who has seen an amazing play in their favourite sport knows that miracles such as this do occur. In fact, after reading Erin’s post, I rushed into the loungeroom to watch the final scene again. How can you not weep tears of joy or at least feel rather sentimental, watching such a great scene?
The fact that I rate this film so highly, yet wouldn’t know a curveball from a slider, really does say a lot about its brilliance. By the way, did you notice how Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) and the pitcher in the final scene are both left-handed? Being a proud portsider myself, I simply had to point that out.
PS: If you love wonderfully sentimental baseball fantasy, there is an episode of the 1980s version of “The Twilight Zone”, entitled “Extra Innings”, that comes most recommended. I absolutely adored this episode as a child, and I was fortunate to find it on DVD last year. It has “The Natural” written all over it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_EEi2e7j7I
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You are the perfect woman! Don’t ever change (unless you want to)
🙂
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