Baseball is a boring sport

Rating: 10/10 (6 March 2012)

I used to be a fan, about sixty years ago when I would take the trolley to Griffith Stadium to watch the Washington Senators lose again. But there were some great players that beat them, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, who I discovered that in spite of my running as fast as I could to catch him for an autograph, could outpace me by his graceful effortless loping to the bullpen.
But the game lost its charm over the years, and with expansion I didn't even know the names of the teams, who had had that old Senators franchise that bounced around the country. So, when a friend offered me his copy of this DVD, saying it was something special, I figured I would watch it and politely fib that I enjoyed it.
Well, I shouldn't have worried. This was one of the finest films I've seen on so many levels. How they captured interactions from the G.M.'s relationship to his daughter, and his young adviser along with every one of his professional colleagues with such utter truth is amazing. Not a single false note. I compare it with the work of David Mamet, an esteemed film writer whose dialogue is his image of how men talk, with every other word four letters beginning with F. I've worked in setting such as the sales rooms of his film Glen Berrny-Glen Ross, and can attest that he was portraying caricatures rather than real people, unlike those dramatized by every single character in this film.
From the original book, to the screen adaptation, to the acting, directing and editing---this was a gem, but beyond technical excellence it was inspired-as reflected by the fat player who tried to get back to first, not realizing that he had hit a home run. I don't know whether this really happened or not, and I don't care.
It was a metaphor. Not just for this film, but for life.