Stunning!Captures the true beauty of baseball

Rating: 10/10 (2 December 2003)

I think this narrowly edges out Field of Dreams as the best baseball movie I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few). The concept here is totally brilliant. Costner's character pitcher Billy Chapel is been having a bad day, he finds out that his ex-girlfriend is leaving for England and then finds out that after playing for the Tigers for 20 years the owner is selling the team and he will probably be traded. On top of it all he is playing on a really bad team in the twilight of his career with arm trouble . He has to throw one more game which may be his last ever as he tries to decide whether to retire. The Yankees meanwhile trying to clinch the pennant and the Yankee Stadium crowd is appropriately obnoxious.
And then suddenly he retires the Yankees one after another and is working on a perfect game. This is such a great topic for a movie because a perfect game is so rare that it is one of the most dramatic and exciting things in all of sports but the excitement and tension builds gradually. In the 5th or 6th inning it's no big deal but as you get later in the game the excitement builds and a meaningless game can become more suddenly become more exciting than the 7th game of the world series. I think the star of this movie is really Vin Scully, he has long been my favorite baseball announcer and he really shines here. This is a baseball movie for real baseball fans, you can tell by a lot of little things that they tried to make it as authentic as possible and did a good job. The photography and slow motion are used very effectively and Costner as usual in his baseball movies does a brilliant job of portraying his character. If you like baseball at all see this movie! It will be a classic, 10/10!