text: Fever Pitch has many of the clichés we have come to identify with Hollywood romantic comedies: a relationship between two people with little in common, the secret he's been hiding that she discovers, the inevitable breakup, and the very public  well, I won't go any further but you get the picture. In spite of its predictability, it works, especially if you love baseball as I do, though I'm not quite as obsessive as Ben Wrightman, a Boston schoolteacher played by Saturday Night Live comedian Jimmy Fallon.<br /><br />Adapted from a novel by Nick Hornby by veteran screenplay writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Ben is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan whose Uncle gave him season tickets when he was seven years old and he's been kind of stuck emotionally at that point all of his life to the detriment of his relationships with women. Ben is not just a fan but a "fanatic" who travels to Fort Meyers, Florida each winter for the Red Sox Spring Training games and never misses a home game during the regular season. His family does not consist of parents or siblings but the fellow groupies who attend each game with him and his bedroom is not a place to sleep but a Red Sox museum to visit.<br /><br />When he falls for business consultant Lindsay Meeks (Drew Barrymore), he is threatened with the possibility of having to grow up but Ben is not quite ready to do that. He would rather attend the Yankee series than go with her to Baltimore to meet her parents or to go to Paris with her and miss the Anaheim series. It takes his relationship being on the verge of dissolving, for him to stop and think about his priorities, especially when a pint-size Dr. Phil wannabe asks him, "You love the Red Sox, but have they ever loved you back?" While the premise of Fever Pitch is that some things are more important than baseball (perish the thought), you would never know it from the way things turn out. Of course, to any one familiar with the history of the Boston Red Sox, it is a team that will break the hearts of its most die hard fans -- but this is 2004, the year the curse of the Bambino came to an end and as the Red Sox move to a new level, Ben might just do the same. Both lead performances are excellent and the Farrelly Brothers even manage a pretty gross gag. While Fever Pitch will never be mistaken for an art film, it is a joyous romp that will have to go down as one of my guilty pleasures. Go Blue Jays!.