‘Hardball’

Keanu Reeves stars as a ‘Coach ‘n’ the Hood’ in this bittersweet inner-city baseball drama.   [PG-13]

By: Kam Williams
   Last fall, Remember the Titans recounted the true story of two football coaches, one black, one white, who molded feuding players at a recently integrated Southern high school into gridiron greats and poster boys for racial tolerance. Hollywood, quick to emulate any success, took note of that touching tale’s box-office success and scrounged around for a similar feel-good story.

"As
As in any forumulaic sports movie, Keanu Reeves takes a lovable bunch of losers to the top in Hardball.

   It found one in the 1993 book, Hardball: A Season in the Projects, a heartwarming account of how another two men — one black, one white — created the Near West Little League amid the squalor of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects. At first, people thought it insane when Bob Muzikowski, an ex-convict turned born-again Christian, and Al Carter, a social worker specializing in gangs, teamed up to try to transform a war zone where about one child died of gunshot wounds per month.
   Their league has flourished for more than 12 years, receiving corporate sponsorship from the likes of Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan on its way to becoming the biggest inner-city baseball program in the country. Among the early accolades that rolled in was one from President George Bush Sr., who recognized them with a Thousand Points of Light Award.
   Unfortunately, there was no joy in Mudville when this mighty story was optioned out. According to Muzikowski, who filed suit in federal district court to block its release, he and his kids are unrecognizable in Hardball, the big-screen adaptation of the book starring Keanu Reeves. As directed by Brian Robbins, the movie tells the tale of an alcoholic, chain-smoking, compulsive gambler forced to coach the Kekamba’s, a foul-mouthed version of The Bad News Bears.

"The
The young urchins on the Kekamba baseball team are adorable despite their salty language and macho posturing.

   Paramount, to its credit, tacked a legalese "this is fiction" disclaimer onto the credits.
   "If it’s not a true story, why were they filming on my block?" Muzikowski, 45, asks, still miffed about his movie makeover. "We had no input into the film whatsoever," he complains. "I have never been cursed out once. None of the coaches have been addressed like this." The teetotaler is quick to point out that he doesn’t gamble, hasn’t touched alcohol in more than 17 years and was not compelled to coach in the ghetto. Quite the opposite, Muzikowski has been critical of the white Christian ministry’s avoidance of the inner city.
   That said, the Hollywood version of Hardball is a good film, nonetheless. Gone from the story is much mention of the league’s black co-founder, who is replaced by Diane Lane as Keanu’s love interest. Ms. Lane performed a similar function in The Perfect Storm, another fictionalized tale where her role was created for the sake of screen romance.
   Here, the young urchins on the Kekamba baseball team are adorable despite their salty language and macho posturing. There’s the usual array of suspects for an underdog sports saga: the showboat, the fatso, the midget; the bespectacled, the asthmatic and even the Danny Almonte, the over-age all-star with an altered birth certificate.
   Paramount pared down the profanity to get Hardball a PG-13 rating. Still, the movie offers an arrestingly graphic and grim look at life inside the projects as likely to disturb as it is to enlighten young viewers. An effective tearjerker certain to send you weeping up the aisle.
Rated PG-13. Contains frequent profanity, sex talk, illegal drug usage and drive-by shootings.