MovieChat Forums > Mr. Baseball (1992) Discussion > Jack's dislike of exercise

Jack's dislike of exercise

posted 8 years ago by eddysl12
9 replies | jump to latest

Having just watched it again last night, there is something that has always bothered me about Jack Elliot. He laments being dumped by the majors, and when he goes to Japan he demonstrates how adverse he is to the very notion of an exercise plan.

While baseball tends to be less demanding physically than football or basketball, you still need strength to hit the ball and speed to run to a base.

As a major league baseball player and particularly for an aging one, you would definitely want some kind of overall physically training to help keep you as physically sharp as possible.

You need to stay in shape also to keep from tearing muscles say when you throw a ball very hard or when sliding into a base.

We see how devoted the Japanese players are to physical training, Jack does eventually adopt the same attitude and it does seem to help him greatly as a ballplayer.

He really should have had this attitude when he was in the majors before he went to Japan.

You may be a major league ballplayer who gets cut because you no longer seem to have it, but if you have keep yourself in shape then you would know that you did everything you could have to prevent it.

[–] rjryan8812 8 years ago

that's the whole point of his character...

[–] eddysl12 8 years ago

Well, I know if Jack had been a disciplined player then we wouldn't have a movie.

If he was indifferent to baseball, got cut from the majors because of that indifference, got traded to Japan and then learned his lesson we would have a more coherent set of circumstances.

It's like an NFL football player who refuses to work out with weights, swim, run, watch his diet, misses practices, etc and then has a real big blowup when he gets cut from the team.

Big league players in any sport are always in danger of being cut, it's the one thing they fear and rightly so. It's not just the money, it's the prestige as well.

I think Jack had won an MVP award a year or two before, maybe that went to his head and he thought he could coast and take it easy. He was wrong about that.

[–] rjryan8812 8 years ago

Don't forget about him leading his team in 9th innings double during the month of August

best line of the movie

[–] strntz (10816) 4 years ago

You know what's funnier about that line? I predates the ridiculous metrics the analysts are using by decades...

[–] jrphilly80 (6) 5 years ago

The way I see it, Jack was just a naturally gifted player for the vast majority of his career. Because of that, he was probably able to get by on talent alone and didn't take conditioning seriously. His coaches likely didn't care for that attitude, but he was producing when it mattered, so they just left well enough alone. As Jack got older, his knees got bad (which he tried to use as an excuse to get out of team exercises upon arriving in Japan), his bat speed started to decrease, and even his hand/eye coordination was betraying him. It got to the point where he finally took it seriously when there was no other alternative, but better late than never.

[–] liscarkat (16530) 5 years ago

For the most part, professional baseball players are overweight and appear to be out of shape. I've seen players smoking cigarettes in the dugout. It doesn't seem as if physical fitness is high on their list of things to worry about.

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

Yeah, it's entirely believable that a naturally gifted pro baseball player would think that baseball doesn't require conditioning or any attention to a healthy lifestyle. Some modern players are fitness fiends and some even use performance-enhancing drugs... and it seems that others don't.

And send a conditioning-driven player to Japan and having him fit right into the culture of his new team wouldn't make much of a movie, would it! So they made a movie about the kind of arrogant player who got along on natural ability until a certain age, and who was a jerk who turned Ugly American when forced overseas. Such people certainly exist.

[–] strntz (10816) 4 years ago

For the most part, professional baseball players are overweight and appear to be out of shape.

Ooooh, that is so wrong. With the exception of the designated hitter who may be older, have bad legs and/or feet yet still rake the ball, baseball players are extraordinarily athletic.

While all professional sports have tremendous athleticism, I would say that if any sport has more than a few "out of shape" players, they are in NFL football. The linebackers are often carrying 50 pounds or more of fat, which actually helps them for their positions. As tremendously athletic the rest of the NFL football team is, there are some guys that can't run 100 yards if their life depended on it.

Also, don't forget that baseball players have to play 162 games for a full season!

[–] Sandman81 (1501) 3 years ago

For a long time it was believed that baseball players shouldn't do to much physical training, especially weight training. The fear was that it would make your muscles to stiff, and adding to much bulk would disrupt your swing. It wasn't until the early/mid 90's before players started taking physical training more serious. Of course this lead to the steroid era, but I digress.

Jack was from the last generation that didn't take training seriously. And even by those standards he was pretty lazy. As others have said, he probably got by on natural talent for most of his career. But time eventually caught up to him as it does to everyone, and his body was breaking down sooner than it should have due to lack of conditioning.