Man, where do I start?  I grew up on sports.  I was fed sports like they were drugs.  I inhaled, wondering at what point in my life, I might exhale (kind of like Terry McMillan in that regard), only for it yet to happen.  Even when my older self tries, unlike Bill Clinton, I take it all in and can’t deny it.  With a passion for sports and competition, comes an interest in sports film. With that, well, you can see where this is going.  It’s baseball season, I played ball as a kid, and while there are baseball movies galore that are revered, like Bull Durham or even the underrated Sugar, The Natural, may always be my favorite sports film ever.  As a movie, it has some problems I would say, but as a piece of fantasy ripe with unparalleled cinematography and an unequaled film score (the best score in any movie I have ever seen), so much of  The Natural represents any young ballplayers dream.

For the uninitiated, Roy Hobbs’ (Robert Redford) is a young pitching prospect the likes of which are rarely seen.  We are talking about, striking out “The Whammer” (a Babe-Ruth-like masher) on three pitched balls type of rare.  Nobody does that.  After a tragic shooting Roy disappears from the face of the Earth, only to re-emerge years later as an outstanding hitter.  After ups and downs in the big leagues, the middle-aged left handed hitter proves himself a star.  However, in recovering from yet another low; a stint in a hospital, due to the lining on his stomach deteriorating from the bullet lodged within years ago, Roy wants only to help his New York Knights win the pennant.

I am not one to have a “man-crush” but its next to impossible not to have one on Redford here.  The soft light that often angelicly frames him throughout the movie certainly helps. In the scene below, Roy is back on the field, with one last at bat to win the game and send his team out on top.  It’s two outs, bottom of the 9th (every kid’s dream I say!) and Roy up against a flame-throwing Iowa farm boy; the irony of facing someone that he essentially once was, the chance to shatter his old self and gain retribution and validation for all his struggles. It all comes down to this.  But then, something happens to his precious “Wonder Boy” bat, and I will let you watch the rest.  I strangely can barely bare to write I am so emotional prepping for this scene.  It still has that effect on me.  Its the power of movies I guess.  The video quality will never do it justice, but I hope you enjoy it, even a smidgen as much as I do.