Discovery Channel
Docurama
National Geographic
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Fastpitch |
List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $22.46 |
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Reviews |
Features:
Description:
Not for baseball fans only, Jeremy Spear's heartwarming documentary will be a hit for anyone who yearns to pursue his own field of dreams. Spear, a New York artist and former college ballplayer, always dreamed of being a professional baseball player. At the age of 35, he began to crave "the thrill of competition." He gave up gallery openings for Opening Day as a shortstop for the New Jersey Gators, a "fastpitch" softball team. If you are not familiar with fastpitch, that is the point of this valentine to a sport "on the verge of extinction." Fastpitch once ruled the neighborhood diamonds of small-town America. But as one seasoned spectator notes, "The game is going downhill." Teams are disappearing "one by one, town by town." Fastpitch, Spear observes, "has a purity hard to find in sports today." But that purity is perhaps being threatened by one Peter J. Forcelli Jr., a junk-mail maven and owner of the Tampa Bay Smokers. While the average team operates on a budget of $30,000, Forcelli lavished $500,000 on his team. But the heart of the game beats on in people like Nick McCurry, who manages Ashland Abbott Labs (the Midwest team Spears eventually joins) and such local heroes as Maori slugger Shane Hunuhunu (whose girlfriend is forced to tack a note on his door warning adoring neighborhood girls to "back off") and Native American pitcher Darren Zack. Fastpitch does something wonderful. It makes you want to rush out to a park to watch a game. Or better yet, play in one. --Donald Liebenson
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