A Mister and a Miss

By Steve Wulf

Issue date: October 5, 1992

The Mighty Ducks and Mr. Baseball have much in common besides the fact that both are sports movies that open at a theater near you this week. Both rely on The Big Game for a big finish as almost all sports movies do. Both use the old newspaper-headline device and, for some reason, both feature an actor named Steven Brill in a supporting role. There is, however, a big difference between these two new movies: One of them is original.

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The one that isn't, The Mighty Ducks, was written by Brill, but it is so derivative it could have been written by a computer. This is The Bad News Bears Play Hockey. The rip-offs from that better 1976 movie include the reluctant coach who finds redemption (Emilio Estevez instead of Walter Matthau), the villainous coach of the dirty team (Lane Smith in the Vic Morrow role), the girl player, the scary player, the fat player, the Jewish player, the black player and the wisecracking player with glasses. Ducks might have been more charming if it weren't quite so familiar.

Mr. Baseball is the story of Jack Elliot -- played by Tom Selleck-- an aging first baseman for the New York Yankees who gets shipped off to Japan, despite this eloquent argument in his own defense: ''But I led the team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!'' Upon joining the Chunichi Dragons, Elliot does his best to insult his teammates and challenge the manager's authority. When asked to lead the other players in exercises, he teaches them the hokey-pokey.

There are some funny mix-ups, both cultural and linguistic. At one point Elliot tries to encourage the Dragons by telling them, ''It ain't over till the fat lady sings,'' which his puzzled interpreter translates as ''When the game is over, a fat lady will sing to us.'' But Mr. Baseball also has some thoughtful things to say about the lack of respect Japan and the U.S. have for each other's cultures. There were reports that the script was changed after the studio, Universal, was bought by Matsushita two years ago, but this is by no means a Japanese propaganda film.

Predictably, Elliot bends to become part of the team, and the managerplayed magnicently by Ken Takakuralearns to have fun. Yet their transformations ring true, and so does much of the movie. Thanks to technical advisers Leon Lee and Doug DeCinces, both of whom played in the U.S. and in Japan, the baseball is extremely realistic. Umpires do widen the strike zone on foreign batters, and opposing foreign players really do let one another know that a pickoff is coming.

Over the years the engaging Selleck appeared in so many major league batting cages that he became known as Magnum, B.P. But practice made perfect because in Mr. Baseball he not only swings like the real deal but also carries himself like a big leaguer. He deserves some sort of baseball Oscar -- call it the Oscar Gamble.

Issue date: October 5, 1992