Tales from a Born Again Texan

For Love of the Game 

Actor Kevin Costner as Billy Chapel, Kelly Preston as Jane, John C. Reilly, Jena Malone and Brian Cox

Described as legendary Detroit pitcher Billy Chaplin has always been better at baseball than at lovers, just as the character “Jane”.

The film opens with the sound of stadium roar of the crowd transitioning to childhood memory pictures and of 8 or 16mm film for the opening credits. 

It helps lead us to our narrative. The credits state this is, of course, based on a novel.

John C Reilly's voiceover is past catcher. The movie later shows the relationship between the two. Kostner’s character, Billy, only wants Reilly’s as a catcher. The movie was interesting in showing how one game plays his whole story of meeting Jane and how his loss of her and other players in his life. The only relationship besides baseball that stays with him is his “catcher.

In Act one, he gets hit with everything, a great monologue of changes in the game of baseball, and how he's getting released, and has to choose to retire or play in New Yew York.

Jane shows up and says she's leaving him, and says goodbye basically in the lobby. 

 He goes to New York, playing as a Tiger, and meets a kid who's just come up to the “show”. The young boy reminds Billy that he was his bat boy, and Dad played with Billy all within the first two minutes of this film. It’s a reminder of how great a career can be and what an inspiration a struggling athlete to has to retire.

It's interesting how they use Billy's last game pitching as No-hitter with the Detroit Tigers, a team that is his identity, to tell his story of his history with Jane and his past other players that have transferred to New York and are now playing, batting against him.

Personally, I can relate to how hard it is to fight to come back, and yet you will never be the same.  Loss is hard. In my recovery process and journey, many friends didn’t stay with me. 

Billy’s catcher is his true friend, who has been his friend through everything. Billy gets tired in the movie, and it's like my own muscle tiredness and lack of recovery to get back to full self. The  40 year old pitcher makes a note as he signs a ball, the film audience doesn’t know what it says.  Tell him, though, for the Love of the Game, since Billy Chapel.

Personally, I saw history with Nolan Ryan as a Texas Ranger in Milwaukee. My family’s connection with baseball brings love. To have my father take us to see Nolan Ryan’s 300th win in Milwaukee was amazing. We drove back up North an hour the next day to get a certificate. I need to remember resiliance. 

Like Billy’s No-hitter win, things are never enough often for me, and the scene where he's alone in the hotel after the game, the quiet of a hotel, many of us now, can be hard. He has won. He has also lost. His only relationship has stayed with him and thanked him.

Bull Durham was released in 1988, and "For the Love of the Game" was released in 1999, yet Costner has taken on a screenplay that shows the relationship one has with the pitcher and the catcher. I have moved from professional to watching College Baseball, but still wonder what the connection is on and off the field. This movie swaps Kosner from a Mentor catcher to a struggling pitcher, yet the offense connection being that pitcher Costner will only work with one catcher, and in For the Love of the Game.  In For the Love of the Game, there is dialogue of how the catcher coaches him and reminds him it’s a team. Everyone is there for him. Defense. But maybe it is also the fans, the roar of the crowd. That sound is the one thing many players- especially those who go to the show talk about. 

Ok, what is the right age to screen Star Wars to your child?  What is too young?

My driver who happened to be a father asked as I sat in the backseat to both my single self and my single sister friend riding shotgun. This question of how is too young opened the with the dialogue of the visual beginning of the movie,

From the back seat,I shared, “Well my Dad had the two of us kids by himself, Mom was helping a friend with her shop, and I guess this was my father’s way of watching us two and he decided to take us to the movie. Now, I reveal age, I don’t know if this was a dollar movie, or a second screening or the true screening, or  just me being around 40 years old, but I remember the opening shot of the scroll of the pre-story and I couldn’t read enough or read fast enough so I was frustrated that I was missing  something, missing some content and I knew it. Dad had to lean over, whisper, reading the story, telling me what was being said. My screening was when I was 3 1/2, around 4 years old. My brother couldn’t be more proud when my 3 year old niece recited “A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away there is a period of civil war where my brush baskets for freedom and have won my empire.”

So is 3years old, pushing on 4 the right time to screen Star Wars? In the backseat of the dark, nighttime car, my next question came up: “Are you going to show the original cut of Han Solo or the Parental in the Cantina?

“Hey” What” My Driver was seemed surprised to be informed what went down in  2016, with Han Solo no longer shooting in the cantina.  

When this discussion was later brought up with my mother, she informs me, “Eh, kids grab onto the smallest things you won’t see and then be in the corner of your bedroom for weeks.”

True, I wasn’t scared of the cantina.I didn’t think anything of Han Solo and shooting under a table. We can say nay to the change up . Han Solo was the cowboy, the rebel.

In questioning when screening a film, I’d be more concerned how Han Solo became Indiana Jones in 1981”s Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes, he was a professor and archeologist and an amazing fighter, but what was the smallest thing I still hold onto is the end of how Nazi ‘s are melted.

Marion takes on a hard-drinking ox in a drinking contest at her bar in Nepal, and she winds up with all the cash

That being said Marion taking on hard drinking contest of shots at her bar in Nepal and she winds up with all the cash, was an example of Marion being a strong woman. Now looking back this is probably one image that probably created my adult  personality. I wanted to travel, be independent and find plus be with an active professor.

As for what age should kids watch what what, kids grab onto and remember the smallest and oddest pieces from Star Wars. With lack of internet, it was harder to research movies so  my parents took me to and my brother to 1986 Top Gun and Mom wasn’t too happy with the blue sex scene. When I shared this in the car, my driver as well as the father asking what age should a child screen Star Wars, said it was not only was not only about the love scene but it was more about friendship. And my gal riding shotgun quickly responded with, “you were goosed weren’t you?”  I think it was more an influence later to play beach ball. and  how he met his wife.

Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom and the Gremlins later were to to influence parents that finally got the PG to add PG-13?. It was a time of my brother would  pretend to be younger to get the child discount on certain movies. We also had the 1984-90 of NC-7 where Clockwork Orange was an influence from 1971 yet I wonder if that would even make MPAA r in today’s ratings.

My brother Matt said he had never been happier when my three and a half year old niece memorize the opener to “Star Wars” in her own words: “ a long time ago in a galaxy far away, there is a period of civil war where my [bush? inaudible] baskets for freedom and have won the empire.