European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 31, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Voices babes and a White men prove that sports films can work by Dave Kindred the sporting news my problem with sports movies has always been the same. I could t take seriously any movie in which the actors were athletic Klut Zes. To see Jimmy Stewart pitch to june Allyson in the Monte Stratton Story a Well Jimmy can act but june had the better Arm. Stallone As a fighter puh Cleze spare me the sight of that Oil slicked midget biceps Flexer and spare me Ever again the sight of Mac Davis throwing deep to Nick Nolte. So with some trepidation i went to the movies to see two new ones dealing with sports. Saw the a he. Liked it. Saw White men can 7 jump. Loved it. When a Survey taker recently asked for a list of my 10 favorite sports movies i immediately said a i have hated them All on second thought that Isnit True at All. Hoosiers was wonderful. Still answer me this Why did the authoritarian Bob Knight clone coach go out of character at the last minute and allow the Star shooter to Call his own play with the state title on the line from the opening minute when Susan Sarandon preaches at the Temple of baseball and 1 learn How Many stitches there Are in a balls cover 108i bought the whole Bull Durham thing. But Tell me. Do we believe crash Davis the rare Catcher with left handed Home run Power would be dumped to the Bush leagues even Rick Dempsey Hung around the show forever and he hit it out of his Shadow loved the natural and Field of dreams. Loss and redemption done As baseball mythology. Why did they make shoeless Joe a right handed hitter perhaps the Best sports biography Ever is Robert creamers babe the legend comes to life the Book that shapes the movies Clear eyed look at George Herman Ruth a creature As much animal As Man As much god As ballplayer. The movie gives us the babe As his contemporaries saw him an uninhibited Carousel whose vulgarity was somehow charming. We see the babe sprung from Reform school by his baseball talents feasting on booze women and Home runs. Nora Ephron the journalist and screenwriter has said that a movies writer has an obligation a to impose a narrative on the facts of history. She Means the facts May be altered compressed gussied up and rearranged to Tell a Story that is True in ways real life can never be True. Or As an old City editor once said to me a kid done to let the facts stand in the Way of a Good bowing to Ephron a experience i accept her premise that the facts Are Only a starting place for the screenwriter. We Are after All not speaking of biography Here but of Art. So in a not bothered much by the pumping up of facts such As with the dying kid. Yes Johnny Sylvester was badly Hurt in a fall off a horse but he was in no danger of dying. A Friend of Johnny a father brought him a Ball autographed by the Yankees and said with no basis that babe Ruth had promised Ter hit him a Home run in the upcoming world series. Only after Ruth hit four Home runs in that series Universal City studios John Goodman can to swing hut the Liucc is a hit. Did he know about the boy. But the movies babe goes to the Hospital before the series hears the dying kid ask not for one Home run but two and then with the fans rooting for Ruth to save the boy s life he delivers the two Home runs. Puh Cleze spare me. More bothersome is the movies Contention that Ruth was driven out of baseball blackballed by the Powers that be when the old Many a greatest wish was to become a manager. Here Art tails. Mostly an honest convincing unsentimental look at Ruth the movie at its Climax gives in to a contrivance that makes the owners wholly evil while leaving Ruth a helpless even pathetic victim. The biographer Creamer has certified that Ruth was bitter and Hurt by baseball a abandoning him at the end. But at least some of Ruth Spain was of his own making. In his later years he could have been the manager of four or five different teams. But he turned Down the offers to stay with the Yankees hoping to get the managers Job there. The truth is when it came to managing Ruth made a mistake of judgment not unlike the hundreds of other mistakes that marked his rousing life. Did i mention Klut Zes John Goodman can act. Utterly persuasive As the Man child Ruth. But he can to swing a baseball Bat. The word a Sgaw a awful comes to mind. Goodman at Bat As babe Ruth is the visual equivalent of Roseanne Arnold in a Bikini As Marilyn Monroe. And we wont even talk about the right handed Goodman trying to be babe Ruth on the Mound a left hander. If its real Athi it. Ability we re after White men can to jump delivers not Only an entertaining Story but also Nice basketball As the game is played on Asphalt courts where the nets Are made of Chain and the men Are made of con. Woody Harrolson is the while boy come to los Angeles needing Money. He teams with Black playground legend Wesley Snipes in Hustles that teach us of basketball Friendship and race relations. I laughed out loud at the comic trash talk on the courts. I adored Rosie Perez As Harry Lson a Girlfriend studying up for the Day jeopardy Calls. 1 he basketball was mesmerizing done in slow motion set to music that matched the games urgent elegant flow. Best part Harrelson and Snipes can play. I loved it so much i saw it cancer also Means fighting a War of words Linda Tell flown Whito Mon can t jump is playing on the aafe3 circuit aah is says the babe will hit its urdu t m August at the earliest when you have cancer and i admit in a new at it Peoples behaviour toward you changes. For one thing people Are very Nice to you. And this is very pleasant. But some Arentt sure exactly How to be Nice to you what to say or not say about what has happened or if they should say anything. Many people done to know How to behave around people who have cancer even when they should which i first noticed on what in be come to think of As the Day of the bad Mammogram. The radiologist did not say a you have this rather Nasty Lump and after looking at these things All Day every Day for 10 years id bet my my parking permit its cancer that would have been too a too simple. Too clean. No the Only thing the radiologist said to me after ordering three sets of two mammograms one per breast which were two sets or four breasts too Many As she and i were Well aware was a a everything a Fine but you must go Home now dear and Call your doctor immediately and will you be of getting Home alone or should i Call someone fast a yet her eyes were so sail i was sure she must be new or honest a i could not imagine which right then and no matter what she said she looked at me just like i was a person who had cancer. Its a look in be come to know. A How arc you a says the network producer at the Anchorman a dinner party. A Fine a i say trying to remember Hei name. A Good. Good. But i mean lowering her voice now so it will be our Little secret How Are you really. A a Quot Pine. i do wish i could remember this woman a name or Why i can to. Quot really really Quot now i remember. She san idiot. A no you Dodo Bird. I have cancer in be had a bilateral Mastectomy every 21 Days a Small nurse inserts a Large amount of Poison into me every morning i Check my Pilow to see if my hairs decided to stay in bed but in a Here a of a dressed like a grown up walking and talking and standing up and taking nourishment so could we perhaps speak of George Bush a civil rights policy or something else equally meaningless its a party. a television reporter i dated when god was a lad sidles up to me at the crud ites. A Bee How a doing a what can you say about a Man who still Calls you Quot been a a doing Fine Artie. Doing a Well people would notice less if you a Stop straightening your jacket that Way. Done to be so self conscious about having no breasts a know Quot a actually Artie i Wasny to feeling until now. A say i think i hear someone calling me. From Way Over ill Tell you who knows How to talk to someone with cancer. Another person with cancer. A woman in be never met who a been through this herself wrote to me. She told me to laugh at the world and do All my crying in the Shower where nobody could hear me and my face would look red anyway. Works too. King features Syndicate May 31, 1992 sunday Page 21
