Why, of the three major sports, is baseball the most picked on. It's like Hollywood has chosen it to be the red-headed stepchild sport that can be totally misrepresented and made a mockery of. They did it with "Rookie of the Year," "Major League," "Bad News Bears" to some degree, and now this. The theme with the teams is the same in everyone: worst to first. The David v. Goliath theme is cool and all, but these movies don't simply feature struggling teams, they feature historically bad dumpster fire teams. Teams like: how-did-any-of-you-even-find-your-way-to-a-baseball-diamond bad.
What did it for me in "Angels in the Outfield" was one ludicrous chain of events. The Angels were winning largely due to the assistance of real angels. The main character, Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), could see the angels and he informed the manager of the team, George Knox (Danny Glover), and his friend, J.P. (Milton Davis Jr.), of that fact.
One important game Roger couldn't attend the game nor watch it on T.V., which presumably meant that no angels would show up to help the team. J.P. attended the game, but he had no angel summoning ability, so the team lost. After J.P. bawled his eyes out over the loss and apologized to Knox for not seeing angels, the arrogant and unscrupulous game announcer/T.V. interviewer/columnist (apparently he was all of these things), Ranch Wilder (Jay O. Sanders), interviewed J.P. about the "angels," because obviously this is a big story. J.P. told all and it made the newspapers.
After this story was published and spread, the owner of the team was threatening to FIRE Knox for believing/claiming that real angels were helping the team!!! The owner was so embarrassed and put off by the idea that his manager believed angels were helping his team that he was going to fire his manager who just brought them from the bottom of the league to first place. He went so far as to hold a press conference so that Knox could publicly denounce the rumors of angels lest he step down.
This was so far beyond the pale of reality I couldn't help but be outraged.
First: that a reporter would give any credence to the rantings of a seven-year-old and then use him as a source.
Second: that anyone would see this as anything more than a joke or mere quirkiness from the manager.
Third: that an owner would be prepared to fire a winning manager for seeing angels!! No owner in his right mind would do that. He couldn't give a flying fart what the manager sees or believes in so long as they're winning. If the manager consulted a fortuneteller every game it wouldn't matter to the owner as long as the team was winning.
The entire movie was compromised after that chain of events. Whatever positive opinion I had at first went right out of the window.
What did it for me in "Angels in the Outfield" was one ludicrous chain of events. The Angels were winning largely due to the assistance of real angels. The main character, Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), could see the angels and he informed the manager of the team, George Knox (Danny Glover), and his friend, J.P. (Milton Davis Jr.), of that fact.
One important game Roger couldn't attend the game nor watch it on T.V., which presumably meant that no angels would show up to help the team. J.P. attended the game, but he had no angel summoning ability, so the team lost. After J.P. bawled his eyes out over the loss and apologized to Knox for not seeing angels, the arrogant and unscrupulous game announcer/T.V. interviewer/columnist (apparently he was all of these things), Ranch Wilder (Jay O. Sanders), interviewed J.P. about the "angels," because obviously this is a big story. J.P. told all and it made the newspapers.
After this story was published and spread, the owner of the team was threatening to FIRE Knox for believing/claiming that real angels were helping the team!!! The owner was so embarrassed and put off by the idea that his manager believed angels were helping his team that he was going to fire his manager who just brought them from the bottom of the league to first place. He went so far as to hold a press conference so that Knox could publicly denounce the rumors of angels lest he step down.
This was so far beyond the pale of reality I couldn't help but be outraged.
First: that a reporter would give any credence to the rantings of a seven-year-old and then use him as a source.
Second: that anyone would see this as anything more than a joke or mere quirkiness from the manager.
Third: that an owner would be prepared to fire a winning manager for seeing angels!! No owner in his right mind would do that. He couldn't give a flying fart what the manager sees or believes in so long as they're winning. If the manager consulted a fortuneteller every game it wouldn't matter to the owner as long as the team was winning.
The entire movie was compromised after that chain of events. Whatever positive opinion I had at first went right out of the window.