Baseball Movie or Movie With Baseball In It: Mr. Baseball
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for another entry in my baseball movie series. This week, I am going to look at the 1992 movie, Mr. Baseball.
Now with a name like that, one would expect this to be a pretty short article. I mean, it says it in the name: Mr. Baseball. There is more than meets the eye in this film starring the mustachioed wonder himself, Tom Selleck, however.
For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to watch the film, Selleck plays an aging first baseman for the New York Yankees who is suddenly traded during spring training to a professional team in Japan. While trying to transition to life in Japan, Selleck continuously bumps up against the different culture and team dynamics of a familiar sport played in an unfamiliar setting.
Why It’s A Baseball Movie
Baseball has the nickname of “America’s Pastime”, and for good reason. While the sport’s roots are found in the British game of rounders, the modern version of the game came into existence with the implementation of a standard set of rules around the 1840’s in America. The game soon spread around the world, including to Japan.
While the culture of baseball we see in Mr. Baseball is vastly different from the American version, there is a deep seated love of the game that is present in the film. Stadiums packed with rowdy Nippon League fans cheering every hit and strikeout reflect a culture of the game on par, if not beyond, that of the MLB. The love of baseball is the same in every language.
On top of that, we are treated to some pretty decent baseball scenes. Sure, most of the on field action is contrived and goes by too quickly and the sound effects are pumped up for dramatic flair. It’s all in service of the real baseball story, though, which is the intermingling of baseball cultures.
The brash, wild American learns a new respect for the game from his Japanese counterparts and he teaches them how to loosen up and give out the occasional “hot foot.” If you don’t know what a hot foot is, give it a quick search and enjoy. Instead of focusing on the on-the-field aspect of the game like other movies, Mr. Baseball takes into the dugout and into the minds of people who sit there.
Why It’s Not A Baseball Movie
While the culture of baseball transcends language, national culture does not and that’s really what this movie is all about. Baseball is used as a backdrop to a story about culture shock and how people adapt in different ways. While much of the film centers around baseball in some form, it highlights differences in the people rather than the game.
A great scene that exemplifies this when Selleck’s character is hit by a pitch. In the movie, Japanese baseball culture dictates that a pitcher tips his cap to the hitter when it was an accident and the game goes on. The pitcher that hit Selleck is slow to tip his cap, making it seem intentional, and both benches clear out into an on-field brawl.
In American baseball, we do see accidental and intentional hitting of batters by pitchers, but there is much less etiquette in the response. We might see the occasional charging of the mound, but more likely the star player of the opposing team will get a fastball to the ribs later in the game as retaliation. The American version is much less formal and relies less on the national culture to dictate what happens on the diamond.
There is also the main drama at the end of the film, when Selleck’s character is set to break his own coach’s record of consecutive games with a homerun. Selleck’s character is intentionally walked to deny him the record and the line, “They don’t like gaijin breaking their records,” explicitly spells it out for us. Selleck is a gaijin, or outsider, and shouldn’t be allowed to hold a Japanese record.
Final Verdict
While I enjoy this film for its insight into the rich world of Japanese baseball culture, the key word here is culture. The crux of the drama in the movie isn’t based on the actual game or relationship to it like other films like Major League and Field of Dreams, but rather on the cultural clash of the characters.
Mr. Baseball is certainly a great film to watch for baseball fans, but it simply isn’t purely a “baseball movie” and falls into “a movie with baseball in it.”
