A Book or Movie WILL Be Made About Your Baseball Experiences

So this is an actual thing …

Hey, I thought it was a cool moment. Both guys handled themselves exceptionally well, and Galarraga in particular showed that a sense of equanimity is possible even in the throes of a screw-job, which is something of which I am wholly incapable. With that said, is this all it takes to sustain a narrative these days? I get that there are moments in time that, as book editors are wont to pretend, CHANGED EVERYTHING, but this happened roughly eight months ago. Have we really had time for sober reflection on anything beyond the epidermal layer of consequences? That is, how do we know that Joyce’s blown call CHANGED EVERYTHING?

And wouldn’t this make a better, I dunno, “Vanity Fair” article or something? How are you going to wring 250 pages out of this story? Sure, we’ll get the back-story on Galarraga and a portrait of the umpire as a young man, but what then? Pictures? Blank pages for note-taking? Clip-out flashcards so you can memorize details of their lives? Mazes? A choose-your-own-adventure chapter or three? A carved out space in which you can hide weed? If nothing else, they should change the title from Nobody’s Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History to I Kicked the Sh*t Out of It: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History. I’m surprised I even need to say this.

On the celluloid front, remember the story of the two Indian pitchers who signed with the Pirates after winning a reality show? The least shocking news ever is that their story is going to be a movie. Also unsurprising: The shlock merchants at Disney will be at the switch.

Normally, I don’t trust any Disney outputs that don’t come to me from the loving arms of Pixar. Partly, this is because I’ve never forgiven them for the sadistic lacerations I suffered from watching Old Yeller. (Seriously, you’ve never heard of rabies vaccinations, you rubes?) Mostly, though, it’s because you and I both know that Disney will one day kill us all. Combine Disney’s dubious sense of aesthetics with the central ingredients of bad cinema already present in this story, and the potential for groan-inducement is both boundless and without bound.

The one consolation is that Tom McCarthy will be writing the script, and McCarthy knows a little something about making good movies. Let’s just hope that the suits let McCarthy use the light, aware touch he showed in The Visitor, so we don’t end up with something like the provably awful “Outsourced” set on a baseball diamond.

Also: Actual. Baseball. Now. Please.