Cru Jones Society

 

Every Wednesday between now and the end of baseball season the Cru Jones Society brings you a new baseball movie examined for both overall entertainment value and treatment of our favorite game. To suggest a film, email us at staff [at] crujonessociety.com. Otherwise, pour yourself an $8 beer, crack some shells, and let’s play ball.

Date Released: April 8, 2005
Box Office Total: $42,071,069
Team Featured: Boston Red Sox

“You know what’s really great about baseball? You can’t fake it. You know anything else in life you don’t have to be great in – business, music, art – I mean you can get lucky. Yeah, you can fool everyone for awhile, you know? It’s like – not – not baseball. You can either hit a curveball or you can’t. That’s the way it works…You know?  You can have a lucky day, sure, but you can’t have a lucky career. It’s a little like math. It’s orderly. Win or lose, it’s fair. It all adds up. It’s, like, not as confusing or as ambiguous as, uh…”

“Life?”

“Yeah. It’s – it’s safe.”  -Ben Wrightman

Ben has only ever loved the Red Sox. That is until he met Lindsey. Now he is put to a test to find out if he has love as big as the Green Monster, enough for both the Red Sox and Lindsey.

Plot Synopsis

Ben moves from New Jersey to Boston at the age of seven. He has no father or friends; he is a lonely boy in a strange place. Until his uncle takes him to his first Red Sox game. Like many young boys who become fans of the team their fathers, or father figures, are fans of, Ben became an official member of Red Sox Nation.

Fast forward 23 years. We meet Ben as he takes a few of his math students to see how math can be used in the real world. This is where we meet Lindsey. Much like real life, Ben’s students tease him about Lindsey liking him, so he goes back and asks her out. She declines. A couple of split scenes between Lindsey with her friends and Ben with his, Lindsey is talked into agreeing on a date.

After one of the most bizarre first dates ever, she’s vomiting and he ends up taking care of her and cleaning her toilet, Lindsey finds herself starting to fall in love. Her friends then start in about how Ben is too funny, too attractive, and just too great to be single at their age therefore there must be something wrong with him. Cut to Ben waking up in his bedroom which is decorated like Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez’s. Or as Lindsey later describes it, like a gift shop.

Ben takes Lindsey to some baseball games and teaches her about baseball game. Their love continues to grow. But Lindsey begins to grow upset that Ben misses a lot of things because he has a game to go to. This fight reaches its pinnacle when Lindsey’s job is sending her to Paris and she wants to take Ben but he doesn’t want to go because the Red Sox are only two games out of first and there’s home games that weekend.

Ben’s inability to put anything ahead of the Sox causes Lindsey to break up with him. While pining about the Sox losing game 3 in the playoffs, noticing three members of the Sox eating dinner like the lost was not that big of a deal, Ben figures out there are more important things in life the Red Sox.

He then races to Lindsey’s apartment to try and win her back. Lindsey won’t take him back because she knows he will only break her heart again. After that Ben decides having Red Sox tickets and being at the games will only remind him of what he gave up for the Sox and is considering selling his season tickets. Lindsey gets wind of this and she suddenly realizes Ben is giving up the one thing he has been devoted to for 23 just for her. She is touched and makes a grand gesture in hopes of persuading him from selling the tickets.

Treatment of Baseball/ Quality of Baseball Scenes

The baseball in this movie is of the highest quality. It is actual shots of Red Sox games from the season they reversed the curse and won their first World Series in like a million years. So we are treated to MLB quality baseball.

But this movie is more about baseball fans than it is about baseball. So these MLB scenes we get are few and far between. But the baseball talk from the fans is quality work. The season tickets holders who share the section with Ben and became his “summer family,” discuss past Red Sox events like true fans. Ben even has a hard time uttering the name of Buckner.

I was very pleased with the portrayal of baseball fans. My favorite example of this is when Lindsey invites Ben to join her on a trip to Baltimore to see her parents during his spring break. He declines because he and his buddies are going down to spring training. I know I have had almost the exact exchange when I told someone I was going to spring training.

Ben: Spring training with the Red Sox.

Lindsey: Oh you get to train with the Red Sox? Are you allowed to do that?

Ben: Well, we don’t actually…we watch the games.

Lindsey: Aren’t those just practice games?

Ben: Yeah, yeah, but there’s more to it than that.

Baseball fans get spring training. Non baseball fans do not. This movie understands that, and thus it understands baseball fans. The movie understands baseball fans never shut it off. Baseball season is all year long.

Annoying Romantic B-Story/ Stifling Spouse

The love story does not play second fiddle in this movie. Baseball does. In all the other movies we have reviewed thus far, the romantic story and the baseball aspect are in complete reverse of this movie. It is not like this movie tricks you into the love story. From even viewing the poster you know it is a rom-com. It does deceive on how much baseball the viewer gets. Since the main part of the movie is the love story, it is not distracting, or as annoying as the love story hap hazardly thrown in the Major League movies.

Final Thoughts

I went in thinking I was just going to hate this movie. It starred Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon, who is really hit and miss for me, it was a romantic comedy, and it was about Red Sox fans. Really the only thing it had going for it was it was directed by the Farrelly brothers.

But I found myself actually enjoying the movie. Barrymore was still Barrymore, but Fallon was toned down but still pretty funny. There was the potential he wouldn’t be much different than his Pat Sullivan character, but he wasn’t that guy at all. Except the minute we see him at spring training. He has a real subtle yet very funny sense of humor in this movie; I could understand why a Barrymore would fall for him.

As far as being about Red Sox fans, not that bad. I know many of us have a negative connotation of Red Sox fans, and many of them deserve it, but there are a few, as with any team, that aren’t complete douche nozzles. Ben happens to be one of those people. He understands and appreciates the game. I found I could relate to Ben as a baseball fan. I could see how this movie could really be about any one person’s love for their baseball team. The writer just happened to be a Red Sox fan, and at the time the Sox were the cursed underdogs, and it was easy for more people to root for them.

Although predictable, I did enjoy watching this movie. It was better than I expected and that is always nice. It is a great concept of how to love a person and the team you have spent you’re life loving. But in the end we have to listen to the advice of some kid, “You love the Red Sox, but have they ever loved you back?”

Ruling from the Scorer: Second base stolen, and then third taken on a throwing error.

lee.s.hart@crujonessociety.com