6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Two On <i>Bad News Bears</i>

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Saturday, July 23, 2005

Two On Bad News Bears

An acquaintance who happens to be a damn good writer -- Bill Warren -- has posted over at Revolution Home Theater Magazine an excellent review of the new remake of Bad News Bears. Excerpt:

“Bad News Bears” is a likeable, relaxed remake of the better 1976 movie with Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal. Billy Bob Thornton steps easily into Matthau’s loafers; his Buttermaker is more profane and less weary than Matthau’s, but they’re both great at being grumpy has-beens who evolve into better people because they coach a hangdog Little League baseball team. The movie is admirably disciplined and focused: it begins just as Buttermaker arrives at the San Fernando Valley ball park where he’s to meet his team for the first time, and it ends a few minutes after the conclusion of the team’s last game of the season. All scenes away from the park relate directly to the kids, to Buttermaker and to their relationship. This kind of firm adherence to form is rare in comedies these days, and this movie deserves a lot of respect for its restraint and resolve.
...
The story still engages, and Thornton always works well with kids, even back in “Sling Blade.” He’s a cagey, careful actor, engaging us and the kids slowly. There’s no one big incident that changes Buttermaker’s mind about his young team; instead, it’s the accumulation of events. In the same manner, Thornton unbends little by little, finally devoted totally to his kids.

There's also a good Alan Schwartz interview ($$$) with Thornton in Baseball America. Thornton, we find out, once aspired to play professionally, and in fact is a huge Cards fan. (The Cards logo even appears on his website.) He taught himself to pitch, we learn:

ALAN SCHWARZ: Not too many people know you were a pretty good high school pitcher in the early 1970s who tried out with the Royals. But it didn't last very long.

BILLY BOB THORNTON: When you say you tried out for the Royals, people think they came and scouted me. But it was one of these tryout camps. There was me and another guy from my town who went out to try out for it. And I had my collarbone broken just standing around.

We were taking infield practice and I was just standing there talking with this other guy. We were behind first base, kind of where a first-base coach would be, but a little further back. I was just talking to him and the next thing I know, I'm laying on the ground. The third baseman had thrown over to first base, and the guy wasn't looking and it hit me right in the collarbone. I never got to throw. They never saw me.

AS: Could you have made it?

BBT: I don't know. I didn't throw the ball that hard. My fastball was maybe 81-82 mph. But I threw a lot of junk--that was my thing. I had a really good slider, I threw a curveball, and I had a screwball. I had a good changeup too.

Jeff Suppan came out to the set of "Bad News Bears," and I threw with him, and he said, "You threw me about seven major league sliders there. You could strike some guys out." So I don't know. But if I had made it in baseball, I would've been retired for a decade now. I'd be selling cars in Orange County or something.

...
AS: You learned to pitch by throwing through a tire, right?

BBT: It gave you something that was close to what a strike zone is to teach you control. Most of the dads would hang it on a rope like a tire swing. My dad put a mattress against a tree so the ball didn't go all over the place. And he put the tire on the ground and leaned it up against the mattress so it was down here. He taught me to keep the ball down. I'll never forget him for that.

AS: Growing up a huge Cardinals fan in the 1960s, my guess is you wanted to be Bob Gibson, not Ray Washburn.

BBT: Gibson was my guy. I had learned my pitches out of his instructional book. He had a book in the '60s that had diagrams of how to throw a slider, a curve. I learned all of those pitches out of there. To me, Gibson was this amazing guy who actually took the time to teach me how to throw.

AS: To this day you have the Cardinals logo on your web site.

BBT: Absolutely. The Cardinals organization knows that I'm a big Cardinals fan. I'm to the Cardinals what Jack Nicholson would be to the Lakers, only geographically he has it made.

They invited me to throw out the first pitch one day and Gibson was there, and he was catching me. It made me nervous after having (bragged) about having been a pitcher, so I couldn't be like a politician and roll it up on the grass. So I threw a slider to him. He came out to the mound, put the ball back in my hand and said, "Man, that was a damn good slider, where did you get that?" and I said, "Out of your book!"