Rookie of the Year Movie Review

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Written by: Sam Harper
Directed by: Daniel Stern
Starring: Thomas Ian Nicholas, Gary Busey, Albert Hall, Amy Morton, Dan Hedaya, Daniel Stern
Rated: PG
Watch the trailer

Plot
When an accident miraculously gives a boy an incredibly powerful pitching arm, he becomes a major league pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

Verdict
A boy manages to live out his dream of playing in the big leagues. Watching as a kid that’s a lot of fun, as an adult it’s easy to see the faults. This follows a rather typical sports movie pattern, but it manages to add enough subplots to keep it interesting. It’s a sweet movie, sometimes a little too much, and the comedy is painfully shallow, but wish fulfillment of accomplishing a dream carries this far.
It depends.

Review
While a fan of baseball, Henry (Thomas Ian Nicholas) isn’t very good and spends most of his time on the bench. A freak accident gives him the ability to throw a baseball 100 mph. That lands Henry his dream job of playing baseball for the Chicago Cubs. The movie ignores the distinct ability to control where the ball goes and the physics of throwing a ball at fast speeds. If the movie were made today, it would probably up his speed to 110 as the fastest major league pitchers hit 104 now.

Henry has to deal with the adjustment of playing baseball full time with a bunch of adults, his mom’s boyfriend naming himself Henry’s agent and quick to sign any endorsements for a percentage of profits, and Henry’s relationship with his friends becomes strained as he’s no longer around. That rounds out the story as Henry befriends the teams resident grouch, Chet Steadman (Gary Busey). Chet was a renowned pitcher, now over the hill.

Gary Busey, Thomas Ian Nicholas play Rocket Steadman, Henry Rowengartner

This has some nice moments when Henry’s mom is rooting for or defending him, but it also becomes too sentimental as mom has a preternatural sense of what’s going on with Henry. The comedy is surface level, revolving mostly around the oddity of a child playing a major sport with adults. I wonder about child labor laws, but this isn’t that kind of movie.

Henry is a likable kid that got incredibly lucky. At the time the Cubs were definitely the team to pick, having gone such a long time without a championship. When the movie released they had last won in 1908, though since they won in 2016. While one player can’t magically propel a baseball team to win, this is a nice story about balancing popularity, friends, and family with the dream so many kids have of playing a major sport.