Almost perfect illusion.....

Well, the women wore very high heels in those days, and Mrs Ruth was the showy type. (Best I can offer.)

Both actors were fit, but fell short of capturing the physicality of the major leaguers they portrayed - admittedly a very hard thing to do. Pepper's neck is too small and his running gate awkward. Jane was closer.

If they ban steroids in the pros and permit them in Hollywood, maybe we'll finally see a baseball movie with realistic looking players.

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

I don't know, the portrayals were really spot-on to me. I'm a lifelong Yankee fan and my dad and uncles were kids and rabid fans in the '60s. My dad said the same thing, about the actors not seeming tall enough, but he rationalized it by saying that since he watched the games as a kid he always thought Maris and especially Mantle were these larger-than-life heroes anyway.
I think both actors bulked up pretty well and looked the parts. Thomas Jane was in great form and very well muscled. Barry Pepper is a slight kind of guy, but he was in great shape too. I guess the idea was to get as close as possible physically and worry more about the acting.
I love this movie, definitely one of the best, if not the best baseball movie ever. Excuse my bias as a Yankee fan.
And as a chick, I must say I definitely enjoyed how physically beautiful both Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane looked in the film, good God.


I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

Think about this: when making the movie, Billy Crystal invited Merlyn Mantle to watch some of the baseball sequences. Thomas Jane looked so much like the Mick not only physically -- but the way he ran, shagged flies (Jane had clearly done his homework) etc. -- that Merlyn became overwhelmed. She had to leave the stadium.
That, to me, says everything.