Monday, January 16, 2012

Offseason Mov(i)es: A Player to Be Named Later

Are you in need of your baseball fix but cannot get anything but football and basketball on the television? If you have Netflix / Qwikster (oops was I not supposed to mention that name?) streaming, you can watch the 85 minute documentary "A Player to Be Named Later" which was released in 2005. *** Update *** I just tried to search for this movie on Netflix / Qwikster streaming and it is no longer available (but you can still get the dvd through the mail). Granted I watched this about 4 months ago and am just now getting around to writing about it. I did not realize that some movies vanish from the streaming portion of Netflix. WTF? Did Netflix kill some of the movies when they killed Qwikster? Anyways back to the review. The movie chronicles the trials and tribulations of six minor league players of the Indianapolois Indians, the Triple A affiliate for the Milwaukee Brewers.

This movie take you back to those "Hoop Dreams" type movies where these amateur players are striving so hard to make it to, and stay at, the professional level. There are the cliche baseball stories such as the "Bull Durham" Crash Davis character that has been in the minors for his whole career and he realizes that this is as far as he will get, but loves the game so much, he can't quit. Then there is the player who gets injured and needs to rehab and you can see the his struggle trying to overcome the injury as well as the high level competition. What is neat is that watching this in retrospect about six years later, you know which player makes it (Marco (Polo) Scutaro), and who doesn't. Also with the interwebs, you can look up the statistics of all of the players and actually see how they did beyond the film's end.

Overall I enjoyed this movie. I think most of us dream of playing baseball as a career and, at least for me, this is the closest we will get to see the behind the scenes daily lives of a professional baseball player. So on the SoSG scale of 1 to 5, "A Player to Be Named Later" gets 4 Dodger dogs. And if you watch this as well, tell me what you thought below. Enjoy!

6 comments:

Dusty Baker said...

Thanks for the heads up on this film. Will check it out. Though I sure wish it was still offered through the streaming option. Less accessible content is such a great business model!

cc: Old Hollywood

Dusty Baker said...

UPDATE: It's actually not even available on DVD right now. One can save it in one's queue, but one can't have it delivered. However, it is available via Amazon instant video, and is free if one is an Amazon Prime member.

ps- Fuck you Netflix!
pps- Thank you Mrs. Dusty for maintaining our Amazon Prime relationship with Amazon!

Alex Cora said...

I was thinking about getting amazon prime. Is it good? How's the free streaming movie collection?

Jason said...

@AC

The streaming selection for Amazon Prime is not all that great, certainly not worth the $79/year fee on its own. But, for someone like me that lacks the self-control to limit impulse buys, the free 2-day shipping easily makes up the difference.

Combine a Prime membership with the Amazon smart phone app with UPC scanning ability and you end up on a first name basis with your UPS driver. (Mine is also Jason, conveniently).

Alex Cora said...

@jason. Ha! That's great. Yes I think I would have a problem spending as well. Especially if they had dodger bobbleheads.

Dusty Baker said...

Jason is exactly right. Have a few pops, dislike the center speaker in your surround sound system, get online and order up a new one, and it's delivered to your door in 48 hours. Not instant gratification, but even the ordering itself is gratification.

I haven't fully explored how many videos are available, and regrettably there is no clown porn.