I don't understand why the other team is shown gathering around the pitcher's mound after Roy knocks the cover off the ball to drive in either the tying or winning run (I can't remember which it was). Can anyone explain this? It's like the other team won by forfeit or something.
shareWeren't they gathered around with the umps and coaches arguing about the rules concerning the unraveled ball? Obviously after a play like that there would be quite a bit of complaining going on by the opposing team! It all seemed pretty typical behavior at a ballgame except for the ball losing its cover of course.
shareI thought that was the dumbest scenes in the movie. The cover came totally off of the ball and the rest of the ball went deep into the outfield. Seems some of the laws of physics were violated there. Fantasy should still have some basis in human experience or belief. When has anyone ever seen a cover come totally off a baseball?
shareThe film IS a fantasy. Scenes like that are way over the top to illustrate the magical/fantastical larger than life quality in the story. You totally missed the point of the scene. You've never heard the expression used in baseball "knock the cover off the ball!" ??? Besides that, if you are going to talk about the laws of physics it would have been far wackier if the cover shot way out into the outfield and the much heavier core stayed in the infield, no? By the way before you pick apart other fantastical scenes in the film you do realize that when the outfielder literally crashes through the fence that has happened more than once in actual baseball games? No the players didn't die like the guy did in the movie but they have crashed right through fences.
shareThank you Turtletommy for showing me that there is at least one other person that understands that scene. I am so so so tired of people comparing films with reality and then bringing things like physics into the discussion, lol. I mean don't you people understand what cinema is. Its storytelling and most of the best stories ever written are fictitious in nature. I feel sorry for these people as it must really suck demanding everything be so realistic for them to enjoy it.
My favorite films are fantasy and science fiction films and I watch movies to escape from reality. Again what a crappy world these people must live in for them to be so incapable of enjoying anything that doesn't adhere to the rules of physics and reality. I can only imagine what a boring childhood such people ultimately had.
Thanks. (<: I remember when I first saw that scene of Hobbs "knocking the cover off the ball" in the theatre I must have had a big grin on my face and was exhilarated by the sheer "over the top-ness" of it, and of course all the many other examples in the movie. I mean my god the filmmakers were almost hitting the audience over the head with all the many outrageous (and thus stupid and nonsensical to dimwit posters) LITERAL and symbolic examples.
shareIt was just another cultural inside joke that can be found in many movies (e.g. Pee Wee Herman's morning routine in which one shot shows him struggling to lift what looks like a 2-lb. barbell and another shot shows his own weight at 98 pounds--a clear reference to the proverbial "98-lb. weakling"). I often wonder how much I'm missing when I watch a subtitled, non-English film. At least, I wonder more about that than I do about the laws of physics in a fantasy film.
shareYou've never heard the expression used in baseball "knock the cover off the ball!" ???
let's talk about the physical impossibility of the cover coming off. Good god.
Actually, I knocked the cover of a baseball when I was only 9 years old. Completley off. Of course, we had been using that baseball for about 6 months... but it DID just took take one swing to go from baseball to...well, something, but not baseball.
Sorry, no animals in the discussion hall. You have to dismount your high horse to participate.
This film is a modernized mythical story or legend like King Arthur or Odysseus.
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I have to agree with the OP........this has always been one of those scenes that purplexed me a bit.
If you watch it again, the ball is knocked off the cover, two runs come in, the scoreboard says it is 5-4 Knights in the bottom of the 7th I think........then the game is called due to rain........Hobbs is standing all alone at 3rd base while the other team is cheering on the mound.
The only thing that would really make sense is that they disallowed the two runs because the ball essentially disintegrated during play.........a game is considered official after 5 innings I think. Since the runs don't count, you revert back to the score after the last full inning, Knights lose 4-3.
Either way, it's kinda unclear.
Interesting. I'll have to watch it again and pay more attention to what you just described. Maybe the whimsical and chaotic nature of the entire play including the opposing team arguing (as I would have I imagine!) with the umps wasn't supposed to make much true sense other than demonstrating the magical nature of Hobbs? I can't recall if that game had much importance in the Knights' season, it was early in it wasn't it? So the main point was who cares about the loss but wow look what Hobbs did.
sharethe knights won the game...the other players were pissed arguing ect...as for physics if you could hit a baseball that hard the hard part of ball would fly out wihile cover satyed near bat or batter...the ball would get pushed through the back part of leather...plus it its just mythical status..
shareI'm rewatching it soon but yeah I think you're right- the Knights won, Hobbs was on base after his "hit", it started to rain while the other team is on the mound understandably arguing with the umps about the wacky play. They weren't cheering or celebrating. One ump I seem to recall has what's left of the ball handed to him and doesn't he say something or it's inferred that's good enough for him, the play stands, Knights win? Maybe the Knights then were celebrating out there....
Yeah I mentioned earlier the same thing about physics- what actually occurred was obviously more logical than if the cover flew out to the outfield and the ball stayed closer to the batter. In this mythical movie the heavier inner ball splits through a seam in the cover and goes flying and unraveling a far distance ...makes sense to me!
Ahhh, mystery solved, thank you!!!
I watched it again. Indeed, the other team is not cheering on the mound, they are arguing with the ump.
I think they were still down by a run after Hobbs' hit, I literally just watched the movie. They were down by 2 runs and Hobbs drove in 1 run, as there is one man on base and he hits a triple. The game is called due to rain, and that's why the other team is celebrating.
That was my interpretation of the scene anyway.
Nope, another Knight had reached second base in the bottom of the 7th but we didn't see him reach base. Then the batter just before Hobbs came to bat beat out a bunt for a single. So Knights on 1st and 2nd when Hobbs pinch-hits for Bump Bailey. Right before the first pitch to Hobbs there's a quick cutaway to the Knight at first leading off and then to the Knight at second leading off while the Philly second baseman near him moves over towards his fielding position. On the second pitch to Hobbs he then knocks the cover off the ball, we never see the Knight at second running or scoring, but we do see the Knight at first running the bases but it's not exactly clear from the angle if he's rounding second or third (I'm thinking it was third towards home). Neither runner is shown scoring. Hobbs is shown rounding second and then sliding into third. He gets up as its raining and we see a "2" being added to the scoreboard at the bottom of the 7th- Knights 5, Phila 4. I think it's implied that the game was then called due to rain, Knights win. What makes that entire sequence a bit confusing is all of a sudden you get a quick glimpse of a Knight at second and you didn't know how he got there or what happened to him after. The focus is on the runner on first who beat out the bunt and then Hobbs. Some screwy editing there.
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I remember in 1979 Dave Parker of the Pirates once hit the cover about halfway off the ball. I have never heard of another player coming close to knocking the cover off a ball.
shareWell the whole point of that hitting the cover completely off the ball by Hobbs was to show the tremendous power (and mythical heroic status) of him, whether it came from once in a millennium talent and/or the magical bat Wonderboy. As well as having fun with the old baseball adage of "come on hit the cover off the ball!" Ironically actual ballplayers have run through fences and injured themselves (but not died like Bump Bailey!) so some of these seemingly unbelievable events have really occurred.
Just as strange are things like Randy Johnson vaporizing a bird in flight unlucky enough to fly between him and the batter, and Dave Winfield killing a seagull with a thrown ball while goofing off before a game.
Yes, I remember this too! You must also be a 'Burgh Boy!
That's no ball...we want a REAL ball!
Keith Moon was the greatest 'Keith Moon Style' drummer ever!!share
They've gathered around the mound to protest runs scored because the ball they're holding is "unplayable".
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It should have been ruled a ground rule double as the defending team had trouble picking up what was left of the ball. Should be runners on 2nd and 3rd, tie game and the game should be finished at a later date due to rain.
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It would be interesting to see a rulebook from that era and see what exactly was codified. It's entirely possible that there was no rule on the ball becoming "unplayable" and that it was left to the discretion of the umpire. (who in the movie obviously ruled that the triple would stand and that both runs could score). Even by modern standards, he could have ruled that runners would have scored even if the ball had been intact, entirely possible with a gapper in a stadium of that era. (Think how deep the outfield was in the polo grounds).
a great metaphor for the forces of life.
🌴"I'm not making art, I'm making sushi." Masaharu Morimoto🌴
Again, The movie tries to maintain a realistic feeling and a fantasy feeling.
It is supposed to be surreal/ dreamlike as posters above said. I love the math and the stats but the film goes beyond it and wants to take you above the upper deck. It tries hard on the rules and stats to bb-fans but plummets out with the Fantasy deal. Those that don't get it don't need to. I love this movie and am a score/stats fan.....I just get it. Hope all the younger sluggers get it also.
The "tore the cover off the ball" inning recalls a poem known as "Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in 1888" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer.
"But Blake, the much despise'ed tore the cover off the ball."
Perhaps that says something about how baseballs used to be manufactured.
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