There ain?t a lot of baseball in Greece. Sure, Greece fielded a team for the
Olympics, when they got a free pass into every event, but that team was
composed mostly of Americans with Greek parents. Obviously, there?s no local
league (at least not one that makes the English press), and the time difference
makes it impossible to really follow the MLB. So, I?m settling for the next
best thing: baseball movies.
Mr. 3000 is a fairly good one. Bernie Mac is a selfish Milwaukee Brewer (which
is about the only sane way to be a Brewer), who, upon collecting his 3,000th
hit, promptly retires. However, he?s such a jerk that the baseball writers
don?t elect him to the Hall of Fame (a feat that?s never happened), and the
sabermetricians discover that he only had 2,997 hits. So, since he?s arrogant
and built a small empire (a strip mall) around his name of Mr. 3000, and
because the Brewers, like always, suck, Mac returns to the pros at the age of
47 to collect his remaining 3 hits.
You can pretty much tell where this story will end up. But that?s how sports
movies are supposed to be. Just like sports video games, they are incredibly
repetitive and unoriginal, but that’s why I like them. They simulate real
life.
I have a friend from school, CH, who absolutely LOVES Bernie Mac. He constantly
would talk about how great he was in Kings of Comedy and how good his TV show.
Personally, I think his staged persona is entertaining, but I haven’t been
bowled over by him. And that?s about how Mr. 3000 is. He’s quite pompous
(which changes in the last half hour, of course), but never quite as nasty as
he could be. Mac has such a nice pudgy smile that it’s hard to imagine him
being mean.
For someone looking to get a baseball fix, it is a good movie. So many of the
details are right. The Brewers logo even changes properly over time, and I
appreciated the mentions of the good Brewers players (like Robin Yount) from
the 1980s. However, if you obsessed enough to run a baseball club in Greece, I
doubt you?ll enjoy it as much as me. EZ saw it with me, and I think she was
less than enthused.
(note: the only player to ACTUALLY “retire” with 3,000 hits is Roberto Clemente,
who had to quit baseball due to his death in a plane crash on a humanitarian
mission. The real Mr. 3000 is the opposite of the fictitious one. Something
the movie SHOULD have brought up, but didn’t.)