(1999) Perfect isn't perfect if even one thing is missing. This film directed by Sam Raimi, adapted from Michael Shaara's novel, is a love story of baseball - "Haven't you ever loved anything that much?" - and of two people struggling to connect after repeatedly striking out.

Number 14 in the Detroit Tigers uniform for the past nineteen years has been Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner), a 40-year-old pitcher having hurled 4,100 innings but ending a mediocre year (8-11) on a team finishing a lousy year (63-97). In the final game of the regular season against the New York Yankees, who need the win to clinch their division championship, Billy is the starting pitcher for Detroit, in what will be his final appearance as a Tiger.

The club's owner, Gary Wheeler (Brian Cox), has decided to sell the team; the new owners intend to trade Billy to the San Francisco Giants. "I've always been a Tiger," Billy says to Wheeler, who says: "Everything's changed" in the game from what he once loved about it, asking his star if he'd prefer retirement. Billy's girlfriend of five years, Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston), has just told him she's leaving New York for a job as an editor in London: "You and the ball and the diamond are perfect."

As he's warming up, Billy insists to the manager Frank Perry (JK Simmons) on Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly) being his catcher - "Today it's me and Gus" (suggestive of Bang the Drum Slowly) - though Perry wanted to use a left-handed hitter in the lineup. "Today I'm throwing hard," he warns Gus.

The fascinating, psychological aspect of this story, an entire game from the perspective of a pitcher, is the focus on Billy Chapel on the mound at the center of the cathedral of Yankee Stadium as he talks to himself about the opposing batters - "No wonder no one likes you, Tuttle" or "The worthy opponent" as he faces former teammate Davis Birch - and recalls earlier events in his life, such as first encountering Jane on the freeway outside New York City, taking her to a game where he pitched and beat the Yankees before going out for dinner and getting her to say "Yes."

By the seventh inning, having retired 21 consecutive batters, eight as strikeouts, Billy's shoulder gets sore. The zone he'd been in begins to fade, leaving him with only grit and the talents of his teammates to get him through the last two innings (reminiscent of It Happens Every Spring). Her flight delayed, Jane watches the game on TV with Yankee fans, recognizing his being tired and hurting but knowing he'll never admit it to anyone and won't come out of the game.

At spring-training camp in Lakeland, Florida, Billy had called her to come down, but when she finally decided to show up unexpectedly to "meet Sandy Koufax and sleep with Mr Right Guard," her timing was terrible: "It's never quite as you play it in your head." In Boston, Billy had retrieved Jane's teenage daughter Heather (Jena Malone) - born when Jane was just 16 - bringing her back on the team plane: "My mother can do nothing normal…. she never had a love story … and now she doesn't believe it."

Back on the mound, Billy asks for a favor from God, not to win but to reduce the pain in his shoulder. When he tells his catcher he doesn't know if he has enough left to finish the game, Gus says to him:
"The boys are all here for you. We'll back you up, we'll be there for you. Billy, we don't stink right now. We're the best team in baseball right now, right this minute, because of you. You're the reason. We're not going to screw that up. We're going to be awesome for you right now. Just throw."

From the announcers' booth, we hear the game and see it much like a Fox-TV sportscast, including instant replays, with Steve Lyons calling color and Vin Scully, recalling having witnessed Don Larson's singular performance in the 1956 World Series, speaking of Billy's "pitching against time, against age, against the future" toward "the pitcher's dream, the perfect game" in which no opposing batter reaches base safely. (In addition to the broadcasters, all of the actors as ballplayers and the umpires were at one time professionals in baseball.)

The conclusion certainly has been lifted from The Natural where Robert Redford's aging ace faced a rookie slugger. "It's gonna be either your night, kid, or mine," Billy says to himself.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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