I Went To A Baseball Movie and A Love Story Broke Out

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 1999)

Ten reasons to avoid this movie (in honor of 9 innings and an extra one the movie made us suffer through):
10. Kelly Preston playing an older' woman with a daughter already in college (she had the child when she was 16) - I can't swallow that but replacing her with Alicia Silverstone, now that would make it believable
9.Pushing FOX Network salaciously throughout this movie - one bit of backfired irony: the movie plot of a family-owned team being sold to a syndicate and having to get rid of its star player - sounds very similar to what a certain Mr. Murdoch did.
8. Picking on poor Detroit - again. Given that the film was made one to two years ago and the filmmakers had to find a bad baseball team that would still be bad when the film came out, but how about Kansas City, Minnesota, The Cubs?
7. Billy Chapel didn't realize that he had not allowed any baserunners until the 8th inning!! How many years has he been in the big leagues? 19, and going to the Hall of Fame?
6. In this sacred cathedral (i.e. Yankee Stadium) we now have a chapel' and more sappy voice-over from Vince Scully. Be careful, Vinnie, John Sayles is looking for a make-no-sense announcer for "Eight Men Out" - the sequel.
5. Does Anybody Care About America's Favorite Pastime?' - good rhetoric but a below-the-belt swipe at Emergency Rooms that ignore people bleeding
4. Calling Prince Billy in Boston - pick up my daughter, bring her home, and I have some passion lovemaking waiting - and other incredibly contrived scenes
3. It can't be a love story because Billy and Jane see each other only during Spring Training and when the team is in town - or am I missing some March to October romance here?
2. It can't be a baseball story - all the players look like cutouts, the 9 innings are the longest any movie fan will have to endure (Harvey Keitel did a lot better job with the 9 innings he had to work with in "Bad Lieutenant"), and the opening scene with the walking teammates in double-breasted suits is a poor rip-off from "The Right Stuff"
1. Why can't Kevin Costner clear the mechanism' of all gimmicks and cliches and make a decent movie about an over-the-hill pitcher who still loves the game' enough to pitch his best game? (Oh, you mean he did that already? Was that before or after "Waterworld"?)