Rewatchables Reference

• The walk-off homer in the final game – the greatest shot scene of any sports movie ever. Breaking Wonder Boy, 'pick me out a winner Bobby,' the Savoy Special bat, the ball hitting the lights, the slow-motion dugout celebration.
• Hobbs showing up for the final game and Brimley shaving – 'My mama wanted me to be a farmer. My dad wanted me to be a baseball player.' 'Well, you're better than any player I ever had. And you're the best goddamn hitter I ever saw. Suit up.' Bill's most rewatchable scene after 35 years of watching.
• Hobbs vs. the Whammer at the carnival – three pitches is all he needs. Joe Don Baker is the best screen version of Babe Ruth. Duvall backing up 20 feet as the umpire is a perfect moment.
• Hobbs' first batting practice – cranking homers, the fountain starts working, Pop is guzzling the filthy water. And the line 'I've been here every day' reveals Roy is kind of a dick.
• Glenn Close stands up in the crowd – they waited for a clear day when the setting sun was at exactly the right spot to make her hat look like a halo. No CGI, all genuine.
• Hobbs' first at-bat tears the cover off the ball in the rain.
• The forging of Wonder Boy – lightning splits the tree, the glowing stump, great 1984 special effects.
• The 'losing is a disease as contagious as syphilis' speech – Pop trying to motivate the team by comparing their play to the bubonic plague.

• The incredible cast – three Oscar winners (Redford, Duvall, Close as nominees), Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey, Richard Farnsworth, Robert Prosky, Michael Madsen, Darren McGavin.
• The Randy Newman score – iconic, Oscar-nominated, instantly associated with triumph. Gets used in sports montages and broadcasts to this day.
• Pop Fisher and Red in the dugout – Brimley and Farnsworth are perfect together. You could watch deleted scenes of them ad-libbing all day.
• Kim Basinger – gorgeous, in the top eight of most beautiful women ever in a movie. Great job by Alec Baldwin.
• Roy Hobbs' three-true-outcomes offensive game – he basically only hits homers, strikes out, or walks. He's a modern analytics player. Basically 2003 Barry Bonds.
• Iris as an independent spirit – single mom in 1930s Chicago, raising a kid alone, has her own apartment, knows everyone at the drugstore. She doesn't need Roy.
• The old-school baseball aesthetic, especially the Cubs uniforms – 20-pound fire-retardant wool that looks like wildling furs from Game of Thrones.

• Robert Redford is in his late 40s playing a high schooler in the first 20 minutes. You could use the John Rhodes Pittsburgh lefty who looks like Hobbs, or the kid who plays his son at the end.
• Roy Hobbs' son can't throw or catch at the end – the worst throwing motion in sports movie history alongside the 'Field of Dreams' dad. The kid carries his glove everywhere but plays like he picked up a baseball two days ago.
• Bump Bailey dies running through an unpadded outfield wall. It plays as bizarrely comedic – the music, the headline, scattering the ashes, Roy showing zero emotion.
• Women as destroyers or saviors – no middle ground. Harriet shoots him, Memo poisons him, Iris saves him.
• The hospital/maternity ward sequence after the poisoning is about 20 minutes too long. There's zero doubt Roy is going to play in the final game.
• No diversity in the film whatsoever – set before Jackie Robinson, but Mallory asks why they couldn't have set it in the 1950s instead of 1939.
• Nobody can figure out who Roy Hobbs is despite him being involved in a shooting that killed three other people. Max Mercy literally met him on the train. He looks exactly the same.
• The Iris-Hobbs romantic scenes are awkward and stilted – they don't have chemistry. He actually has more chemistry with Memo.

• Darren McGavin as Gus Sands – really going for it every scene, a candidate for the overacting award too. Uncredited despite being memorable.
• Michael Madsen as Bump Bailey – wanted to give it to him but he's not in it enough.
• Bobby the bat boy.

• Kim Basinger as Memo Paris – over the top, but it's actually part of the character since she's always performing and making herself someone else.
• Robert Prosky as The Judge – so over the top, always lurking in the dark.
• Barbara Hershey's shooting scene – some bad acting in a good way.
• You could make a case for literally everyone in the movie.

• Darren McGavin was uncredited because he was cast late and refused lesser billing. His IMDb is mostly Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Terrible decision.
• Randy Newman created the iconic score, nominated for an Oscar.
• Hobbs breaking the clock was inspired by Bama Rowell of the Boston Braves hitting the Ebbets Field clock on May 30, 1946, showering Dixie Walker with glass. But the Wrigley clock didn't exist until 1941, two years after the movie is set.
• There's a director's cut that's 6 minutes longer – trims the opening Redford/Close stuff but adds more Bump Bailey and Gus scenes.
• Bobby the bat boy was played by George Wilkosz, discovered at his parents' produce stand in Buffalo. His first and last movie.
• The Roy Hobbs quote 'you have to have a lot of little boy in you' was actually a Roy Campanella quote.
• 3,000 extras at $3.35/hour minimum wage, plus cardboard cutouts in straw boater hats.
• Barry Levinson did uncredited voice work as the radio play-by-play. Bret Hart got his catchphrase from this movie.

• Wilford Brimley's Apex Mountain – debatable (The Firm is the other candidate), but his chest hair was definitely at its Apex Mountain. Brimley was the same age in real life as Bill is now and looks 78.
• Not Redford (All the President's Men/1970s), not Duvall, not Glenn Close (L.A. Confidential got her the Oscar), not Levinson ('Rain Man').
• Small case for Kim Basinger – The Natural got her career moving, though L.A. Confidential was the Oscar.
• Roger Towne the screenwriter – didn't do much else, so yes by default.

Darren McGavin as Gus – that guy you recognize but whose name you didn't know until this podcast.

• The Wrigley Field clock didn't exist until 1941 – the game is set in 1939.
• The national anthem is being sung before the game, which didn't become standard until after World War II.
• Hobbs doesn't put two and two together that Iris' son might be his. How old is he? Just ask the follow-up question, Roy.
• If Fowler the pitcher was bribed to throw the game, he throws a three-hitter through eight innings. Worst throw job ever – just walk a bunch of dudes.
• The newspaper copy is gibberish if you freeze-frame it, and the dates go back and forth (July 5th, then June 30th).
• Nobody hears a gunshot go off in the owner's box before the final game.
• Pop Fisher's lineup construction is abhorrent – he puts his slowest guy in the two spot.
• Roy worked so hard to hide his past but kept his extremely distinctive name. Change your name, Roy.
• The silver bullet medical situation makes no sense – they couldn't get it out in 1923 but it comes out perfectly later after the poisoning.
• Roy's side is bleeding through a 20-pound fire-retardant wool uniform. That blood is not getting through.

• What did Roy Hobbs do for those 16 years away from baseball? Bill's theory: playing semi-pro ball in the middle of nowhere, running a general store, spending a lot of time walking around wistfully with his hands in his pockets.
• What are the newspaper headlines after the walk-off homer? 'Knights Stadium Night Slugger Mashes Explosive Game-Winning Homer, Suffers Career-Ending Exploding Stomach Injury, 23 Dead, Hundreds Critically Injured.'
• What does Iris' note to Roy say? 'Your son is in the stands. He's 16 and he doesn't know how to play baseball.'
• If the Whammer makes contact at the carnival, Harriet kills him instead of Roy – she's chasing 'the best ever.'
• Is Kim Basinger a good actress? She actually might not be.
• How many people died from the exploding stadium lights? At least a hundred.
• What are Roy Hobbs' actual stats? Approximately 70 games, 28 homers, 70 RBI, .370/.450/.750.

Yes, but probably as a basketball story set in the late 1960s – baseball can't sustain it anymore (the show Pitch got cancelled). Basketball is now the American pastime because of its diversity. A hoops prodigy gets shot in 1953, shows up in the NBA in 1969. The internet ruins the mystery if set in modern day.

• Robert Redford. Not his Apex Mountain, but it's his movie.
• You could make a case for Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley) – he's the heart of the film. Roy is pursuing the Holy Grail, but it's really about the maimed king Pop finally getting his win.
• Red (Richard Farnsworth) is iconic but not in it enough to win.