Art Imitates Life

So I was watching the San Francisco Giants play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in an unusual day where the Giants offense exploded with 30 hits and 19 runs during a day-night doubleheader, when Miguel Tejada came to bat. Starting the previous sentence with so was a bad idea because a normal sentence became a run on and now I am completely averse to punctuation but that is besides the point so let's get back to baseball and one of the greatest baseball movies ever.

Miguel Tejada crushed a ball to left field and started his home run trot. It landed in the first couple of rows and a very aggressive Cubs fan went after the ball because this was a man on a mission. Possibly a man stuck in 1993, hey it was a great year. It was the year Barry Bonds came to the Giants. I went to Disney World that year. One of the best baseball movies ever came out that year: Rookie of the Year.

First here's the clip of the Cubs fan yesterday throwing the ball back.

I wish I could interview this human. So many questions to ask: Question #1: What was your thought process? Q2: Were you trying to nail Tejada? Q3: Baseball resume? Q4: Is your name Henry Rowengartner? Q5: Did you break your arm recently? Q6: Did you buy that women next to you another alcoholic beverage? Q7: Have you been contacted by the Cubs scouts yet? Q8: Are you related to Bartman? Q9: What is your occupation? Q10: Did you have to ice your arm later that night? Q11: Would you do it again? Q12: Have you ever seen Rookie of the Year? Q13: Who throws harder you or Rowengartner? Q14: Is your go to line "Funky butt lovin'"? That's enough for now.



Let's discuss Rookie of the Year for a bit because I need to point out a couple of interesting connections the Giants have to this movie. The child prodigy pitches for the Chicago Cubs and from what I remember there is a strikeout montage. One of the hitters is a one Barry Lamar Bonds. In a Pirates uniform. The year is 1993. I guess the movie people assumed he would have been on the Pirates still or completely missed that or just didn't watch baseball (which would be ironic). Here's the trailer, look out for Bonds at the end:







I know what you are thinking: how did this not win an Oscar? Quality baseball movies get no respect. Almost exactly 18 years after Rookie of the Year premiered (if they even had a premiere) an over zealous Cubs fan pulls a Rowengartner and throws back a home run ball almost into the away team's dugout. When art imitates life it's never as gracious or magnificent as reality but it's so much more surprising. Anything can happen in movies but you just wouldn't believe it if someone told you what they just saw. Yesterday the phantasmagorical was real.