For Love Of The Game

Opens September 17, 1999

For Love of the Game is a breezy slice of American pie that stands to be this year's Jerry Maguire, although it lacks that film's edge and many memorable lines. Call it the kinder, gentler version with star power.

Once again, the world of baseball belongs to Kevin Costner. In a better than average turn as once legendary, soon to be has-been pitcher Billy Chapel, Costner charms with his aw, shucks basic-ness, hitting the beats that made him a star and showing us why America should still love the game it calls its national pastime.

People say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. In For Love of the Game, the looming end of a pitching career is equivalent to death for Billy Chapel. Over the course of nine innings, Chapel flashes through his triumphs and regrets, asking himself the big questions, most importantly What's it all about? The conclusion he arrives at is inevitable (and predictable), but the choices he makes keep us in our seats.

An opening montage chronicles Chapel's childhood love of baseball and ends with his star status as a 19-year veteran of the Detroit Tigers. The story picks up the night before a big game in the House that Ruth Built when Chapel is hit with a double whammy. Jane (Kelly Preston), his girlfriend of five years, breaks it off with him. As she says, Billy and baseball are a perfect fit. When he's on the field, it's magic and he doesn't need anything else. Translation: He's never really needed her.

Soon after, the owner of the Tigers tells Billy that he's sold the team and the new buyers want to trade him. This is the real kicker. Billy's been a Tiger his entire career, so he has only one choice. It's time to pack in his ball and glove, not an easy task for an old-timer who still treats the game like a scared ritual. So, as he stands on the mound, the crowd hurling expletives, his shoulder aching to beat hell, Billy Chapel remembers and most of what he remembers -- in perfectly rendered flashbacks - are his missteps with Jane.

In many ways, this film is one of the best and most accurate baseball movies to step up to the plate. The combination of Stevens' storytelling and Raimi's direction capture both the majesty and the torture of the sport. Billy's perspective of ball playing is the anchor in this story. He comes from an era when gentlemen, not corporations, played the game. A time when honor was prized over dollar signs and loyalty was more important than free agents. When winning the pennant was a spiritual experience, not a contractual imperative.

These gentle lessons serve as both a slap on the wrist to sports folk for the way they've cheapened the game, as well as a plea to the audience to remember that baseball still has a soul, that its players are only human and that the game itself is in fact only just that? a game. When Billy's shoulder goes, we feel the both his physical and emotional pain, the sense of betrayal he harbors over a body that refuses to perform any longer. And we understand the fleeting nature of fame. Billy Chapel is a player at the end of his game, and this revelation is heart-breaking.

Much of the credit here goes to writer Dana Stevens, whose insightful adaptation of Michael Shaara's novel takes this film to the next level. Stevens' characters are memorable because they are human and they make mistakes. Billy isn't always the nice guy and, even though he's a superstar, he's also just a man. Jane spends most of her time running scared, but she's also ballsy and able to admit that she's screwed up. While Steven's writing doesn't quite have the verve of Ron Shelton's Tin Cup or