FanPost

Mr. Baseball Revisited

"He's the biggest thing to hit Japan since Godzilla." Factually true and culturally sensitive. Bravo, Universal Pictures marketing dept.

With the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics set to kick off the 2012 season in Japan, why not revisit the idea of irrelevant American players searching for relevance in Japan.

After a considerable amount of soul searching and a ton of free time, I've decided to reflect on the 1992 dramedy, Mr. Baseball, starring Tom Selleck's sexual presense and co-starring Dennis Haysbert (Major League's Cerrano) and Tom Selleck.

You might be asking yourself, "why?" If you are, I'm definitely shocked you've engaged with this article that much. But I'll refrain from judging you based on your poor decisions. Mr. Baseball, or as it's pronounced within the film, "Miz'tah Baze'suh'luh'bole," remains as thought-provoking today as it did in 1992. Inb4 "it's not thought-provoking."

High of mediocre success of 1990's The Russia House, director/producer Fred Schepisi decided to make a movie about an aging American baseballer ending up in the Nippon Professional Baseball league. He must've have convinced enough people it was a idea pregnant with hilarity because some A-list Hollywood folk enlisted on the project.

The story is credited to two human beings, Theo Pelletier and John Junkerman. This is the one and only time either of these guys were credited for a film story and the world is a better place. It took three additional human beings to work their story into a screenplay, one of which is Gary Ross who had previously been nominated for an Academy Award for Big. Ross would go on to helm his own movies, including 2012's The Hunger Games.

Jerry Goldsmith signed on to compose the score. If you bother to read over Goldsmith's filmography, you'll find he scored an average of 7 films a year between 1954 and 2003. He's even credited for scoring films after he died, which is scientifically impossible. This leads me to believe there was some guy going around pretending to be Jerry Goldsmith, possibly even working along-side the actual Jerry Goldsmith in some kind of money-making scheme. In any case, Jerry Goldsmith's name is credited to some amazing film scores and even more amazingly craptastic film scores.

Then there's Tom Selleck. At this point in his career, he'd had 10 consecutive leading roles in movies, while also starring in eight seasons of Magnum, P.I. Following Mr. Baseball, Tom Selleck has not played the lead character in any movie he's been involved with since.

If you've care enough to notice, I haven't said a word about Mr. Baseball yet. It's because I haven't seen the movie in 20 years. However, if you have an internet on your computer, you can visit the Wikipedia webzone to harvest information. I don't recommend it though. The film's three paragraph synopsis is just as dull as the movie.

Here's the kicker. Mr. Baseball completely rips off the ending of another baseball movie, Major League, which was released just three years earlier. I know, right? In case you need a refresher, Major League's finale has an aging white guy baseball player surprising the opposing team by throwing down a bunt when they think he's swinging for the fences. Wanna know how Mr. Baseball end? Probably not, since I just told you they have the same ending. I'll tell you anyway. Mr. Baseball's finale has an aging white guy baseball player surprising the opposing team by throwing down a bunt when they think he's swinging for the fences.

Some nut job bought the domain www.mrbaseball.com and posted a picture of himself. Here it is.

He clearly isn't Tom Selleck. I've emailed this guy to tell him that. He hasn't responded. I'll send you an autographed copy of Mr. Baseball if you send me a copy of Mr. Baseball. Visit my webspace for contact info.