In “The Natural”, the final scene where Roy Hobbs/Robert Redford is playing catch in the wheat field with Glen Close’s character’s son makes no sense. Who the hell plays catch in a wheat field when the wheat is waist high? If you drop the ball or make a bad throw you’ve got to waste too much time looking for the ball!
The Bernie Mac movie Mr. 3000 had a lot of heart but was bad baseball-wise. In it, Mac played an obnoxious millionaire superstar on a bad team who retires after getting his 3,000 hits, who later comes back after it is learned that because of a bunch of scorekeeping errors he really only had, I don’t remember exactly, but let’s say 2,992 hits.
Leaving aside that that number of scorekeeping errors is entirely improbable in the modern era of baseball, what’s wrong with the movie is that when Bernie retired his team - the Brewers - was terrible and was managed by Paul Sorvino’s character, and when Bernie came back years later the team was still terrible and was still managed by Paul Sorvino’s character. Managers on consistently bad baseball teams don’t last that long.
The worst thing about The Scout is that my brain has it totally conflated with Talent for the Game
Which is almost a good movie before it turns into a farce without realizing it is a farce.
So lodged in my brain is a story,staring an Albert Brooks/Edward James Olmos mush-up who is a baseball scout, that simultaneously goes in two asinine directions toward absurd conclusions. And there is no way in hell I am going to watch either one again to straighten it out.
As silenus and others have said, Al offered to double the bet on the putt right then. Which was a stupid bet for the Judge to take - before the terms changed, it was win if Noonan misses - play another hole if Noonan makes it. NNNNoonan!
How about Tin Cup? Roy (Kevin Costner, again) is playing in the U.S. Open, and has been obsessed with reaching the green on the final hole with his second shot. In the first three rounds, he’s come up short and hit into the water hazard in front of the green. In the final round, while leading the tournament and everyone telling him to lay up short, he goes for it again. He hits a three-wood (if I remember correctly)…
…and makes it! Or so we all think, until the ball stops, and then starts rolling backwards and into the water. Roy, in his mania, insists on taking another shot from where he is, instead of a dropping a new ball near the water for an easy chip shot.
I’ve got two problems with this. First, don’t you drop a new ball near where the old one entered the hazard? Wouldn’t he be allowed to drop on the far side of the water, about where he’d have been if he laid up and chipped? Maybe he still wouldn’t have done it, but it should have been mentioned.
But more importantly, a 200-yard (or whatever it was) shot from a three-wood would come in low and fast. The only way that ball stops and comes off the front of the green is if it’s sloped like the north face of the Eiger. If his shot rolled into the water, every shot would roll into the water.
Not sure I’d want a completely realistic football game in a TV show. A comedy. A frequently stupid comedy. That’s not even about football, as much as the characters.
Someone would have to check the USGA (not PGA) rules but I believe the drop from the hazard is a 2 stroke penalty whereas from the original spot is a 1 stroke penalty.
But that’s not the point. You can drop from as far back behind the spot as you want so the shots were within the rules. Van der Velde … oops Coster wanted to prove he could make that shot no matter what it cost him. Very realistic actually.
OK, but it’s rare enough an occurrence that it’s perfectly reasonable for Crash Davis to not get a chance at the majors despite all his minor league home runs. I’m sure that Shelton was thinking about someone like [url=Joe Bauman - Wikipedia[Joe Bauman – 337 HRs, 1.039 OPS (with no record of his number of walks), 72 HRs in 1954, but not a single game played in the majors.
Unless they changed the rules since I played regularly, you can’t drop on the far side in such a situation. If you end up in a water hazard (not a lateral hazard), the rules say you can drop where you hit it, or as far back as you’d like on a line from where it first entered the hazard and the hole. “Back” being the operative word. If you bounce it off the far bank and it lands in the water, the rules do not recognize that you cleared the hazard. It’s the same as if you landed right in the drink.
And I fully agree with your second point. He’s hitting a three wood into a par five–not a pitching wedge, a three wood. It’s going to land without much spin, onto a green specifically designed to accept such a shot. If the green can’t hold that shot, it can’t hold any shot. Nobody would have holed anything unless it happened to land in the hole from off the green. The first group would have emptied their bags into the pond, DQ’d themselves for running out of balls, then walked off for the next group to do exactly the same, and so on, and so on…
Speaking of racing, and since TV has already been mentioned, I’d like to add another one because it’s SO bad, I literally (yes, literally!) came out of my recliner when I saw it.
On the original Fantasy Island TV show, they had a guy who was, I think, redoing an auto race from his past. One scene, in this Formula 1-style race car, showed the gauges. And right there in front, which the camera even zoomed in on, was…
I kind of like the end of Tin Cup. It has nothing to do with common sense, he just “knows” he can make that shot. Sure he could take a drop and chip on to the green but he thinks the wood is playable and he’s going to prove it. It’s all about pigheadedness really.
Fasano technically is a career minor leaguer, compare his career averages. The reason he gets time in the Majors is to help out the rookies, sort of a player-coach. Like Crash Davis.
Yeah, I get it; it’s not a bad movie, and this is far from the worst error I’ve seen, it’s just that the physics of that shot never looked right to me.
Thanks to Saint Cad and Stratocaster for the clarification on the rules. Seems a bit harsh that if you roll backwards into a hazard that you have to go over it again.
I think they do try to address it in the movie. Costner’s first shot doesn’t get all the way to the hole. I suppose they could say that the front of the green is sloped toward the water, and a successful shot needs to clear the water and the slope.
I’m not a golfer, but I have watched it. I’ve even heard that the greens at the Open are made to be particularly fast and difficult. But is there any green on any course where a shot from a three wood would roll backwards?
One case does not disprove my point. One team may choose to bring up a career minor leaguer for that reason, but many would not bother with the roster space. Right now, the Mets are using Chris Coste to mentor their catching phenom, Josh Thole – but at the AAA level. That makes much more sense than to use a roster spot at the major league level.
In any case, since they want Davis to mentor Laloosh, who is not ready for the majors, Davis has to stay in the minors to do it. Otherwise, you’d be giving up two major league roster spots for two people who can’t help you. It makes no sense whatsoever to bring Davis up to the majors when Laloosh isn’t playing there.
The rest of your post is certainly valid, but there are specific situations where a player who didn’t play on the team during the regular season can play in the playoffs and world series.
Technically, you have to have been on the roster by August 1 to be eligible for the playoff roster, but the exception is that if an eligible player goes on the DL, you can use anyone to replace them. The most famous example I can think of is Francisco Rodriguez with the Anaheim Angels in 2002. He came up in September, pitched well in 5 2/3 innings (13 strikeouts!) and then played a huge role as a set up guy in the playoffs and world series. The Angels used that rule exception to get him on the roster. I think its become a fairly common tactic since then, mostly with relief pitchers. I think there’s even been a situation recently where it happened with a position player who had literally not been on the major league roster at all, but it was an extreme “our guy is injured and we need someone on the bench just in case” kind of deal.