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The Last Detail


            Chicago, Illinois in the early fall of 1919. A couple of kids get tickets and run to go see the White Sox play the final pennant game to get into the World Series. In the press box, sports writers Ring Lardner (Director John Sayles) and Hugh Fullerton (Writer Studs Terkel) are passing around comments to one another about the players. Entering the room is "The Old Roman", Charles Comiskey (Clifton James), the owner of the White Sox along with a group of sports writers and press agents into a nice banquet room with hors d'oevre's and champagne with Comiskey bragging about his ballplayers and them winning. While he is talking about them, we get glimpses of the star players of the White Sox on the field, to include Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), pitcher Eddie Ciccotte (David Strathairn), Eddie Collins (Bill Irwin), Swede Risberg (Don Harvey), Hap Felsch (Charlie Sheen in a small role), Buck Weaver (John Cusack), Ray Schaalk (Gordon Clapp), and the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney). While the game is going on, small-time gamblers Sleepy Bill Burns (Christopher Lloyd) and Billy Maharg (Richard Edson) are in the stands evaluating players who they think could be part of a plot to throw the World Series for some cash, since Comiskey grossly underpays most of his ballplayers compared to most other teams. They do not want Eddie Collins or Ray Schaalk to be part of it, since Collins is a college-educated man that gets paid well and Schaalk is too temperamental to even be considered part of it. Eddie Ciccotte is the key player they want because of his pitching record and nearing retirement in his late 30's.The White Sox win the pennant with Hap Felsch having caught the ball of the player in the outfield. The team wins and enters the locker room with Comiskey's secretary Harry Grabiner (Jack Merrill) giving them champagne for having won. They are delighted at having it, but it turns out the champagne is their bonus for having won instead of cash and all the team are disappointed. Their manager Kid Gleason (John Mahoney), tries to encourage them, but cut off and assured he's not part of their beef. Even more disappointing is the champagne turns out to be flat. Whereas Comiskey and the press agents are enjoying expensive champagne and hors doevre's giving him cheers. The team all poses for a group photograph.That night, many of the players are celebrating in a local gin mill. The illiterate Joe Jackson is having his wife read the paper to him about the day, Felsch, Risberg, Weaver, and utility player Fred McMullen (Perry Lang) are hanging around the bar area, and Chick Gandil is hanging out with a couple of ladies and a shady gambler, Sport Sullivan (Kevin Tighe), explaining his ordeal and Sullivan assures him he could get 6-7 men in to throw the World Series, but doesn't believe Gandil could engineer it, but Gandil reminds him of the cheapskate they work for. Burns and Maharg are also in the gin mill overseeing the conversation between the two with Burns believing Sullivan is just trying to get inside information about them.Gandil and Risberg are in the men's room using the urinals with Gandil explaining what he wants to do and McMullen overhears their conversation. Fearing exposure, Risberg lets him in on the projected fix the men will have on the World Series. After leaving the men's room, Burns and Maharg approach Gandil wanting to have a part in the bet presumably unaware that Sullivan already beat them to it. Gandil doesn't want to have more than one party, but Risberg facetiously asks "what will they do, call the cops"?, if they have all of them.Back at his home, Ciccotte is having his wife rub balm on his arm to help get it prepared for the World Series. And Buck Weaver is going home from the gin mill with local boys wanting to play a little catch with him.Ciccotte is dismissing Gandil's idea about throwing the World Series that he has a secure income, but Gandil insists his time is running out. Ciccotte goes to visit Comiskey for his $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games, but Comiskey denies it to him that he won only 29, even though he was benched for 2 weeks. Ciccotte approaches Gandil at a depot requesting $10,000 in cash before the first game and Gandil is delighted he's in on the fix.At horse race tracks in New York City, Burns and Maharg approach former boxing Champion Featherweight, Abe Attell (Michael Mantell), since he's an alleged messenger for powerful gangster Arnold Rothstein. Abe brushes them off at first thinking they're just small-timers.Risberg is at pitcher Lefty Williams' (James Read) home trying to convince him to join the fix to throw the World Series, since they now have Ciccotte, and he concurs.We are introduced to Arnold Rothstein, a shrewd, aloof, impersonal businessman and one of the most powerful mobster figures in the country. Attell is at his home trying to convince Rothstein to be the man for the fix to throw the World Series, but he denies he's interested without hesitation because he knows how these people work and how this type of people tried to bring him down when he was a kid. Attell leaves and Rothstein gets an operator on the phone to get someone to come see him.Attell lies and tells Burns and Maharg at a bar that Rothstein is interested, but not to let any of the information to leak out unless they want the deal off.Rothstein is having dinner at his lavish home and Sport Sullivan enters telling Rothstein that he can get eight men in on the fix, to include Ciccotte, but Rothstein tells him to just wait and not say or ask anything more for the time being. Sullivan leaves.Sullivan is at a train depot telling Jimmy (Phillip Murphy) an employee of his, about Rothstein's home. An employee of Rothstein's, Monk (Stephen Mendillo), steps in and tells Jimmy to leave. Monk drops $80,000 in cash telling him that the fix is on, Rothstein is in and Ciccotte is to hit the first ballplayer at bat to signal that the fix is on. He's also instructed to not in any way connect Rothstein to the fix. Sullivan wants Jimmy to take some of the cash and place bets elsewhere and that some of the players will get money, nevertheless.The ballplayers and sportswriters Lardner and Fullerton are all on a train to Cincinnati for the first game. Hap Felsch is now being summoned to be part of the fix, but refuses unless Joe Jackson gets in. Buck Weaver overhears the conversation and is outraged that the men are talking about a fix. Sullivan is on board as well offering them a drink of champagne. Risberg visits Jackson in his dark quarters with Jackson doing an old wives tale of staring at a candle with one eye covered to make his batting eye better. Risberg tells him about the fix and the simple-minded Jackson can't understand why they're doing it or want him part of it, but he's intimidated by Risberg and concurs. Weaver is troubled by the men's arrangement in this proposed scandal.The men are now in Cincinnati and Gandil is visiting Attell with other ballplayers thinking the man is a bluff in it because of the lack of cash. Ciccotte is secretly asking Gandil about the cash and he's told to just look under his pillow, compliments of Sullivan.Buck Weaver is at the empty ballpark practicing for the series and Kid Gleason approaches him. He almost decides to tell Gleason about what he's heard, but declines.Ciccotte is looking out his hotel room at the commotion of a street crowd opposing the White Sox. He then goes to his bed and finds $10,000 in cash under his pillow.The first game is about to begin. Kid Gleason tells Lardner and Sullivan that he hears rumors all the time about a fix and denies his players would be part of it. They pretend to believe him and both secretly agree to keep separate score cards for any player they feel is not performing up to par and to compare afterwards. Jackson, feeling guilty about what he now knows, tells Gleason he doesn't want to play, but Gleason angrily tells him he will. Gleason gives a lecture to his club before the game to give it all they have.Game One begins. Arnold Rothstein is at a conference room in New York where the game is being transmitted into Morse Code for the audience. Ciccotte hits the first player with his ball and Rothstein leaves the room knowing the fix is on. Cicotte's pitching is not up to par, catcher Ray Schaalk is frustrated at Ciccotte, the Red's keep scoring, and Buck Weaver is giving 100% into the game. At the end of the game, the Red's have won. Risberg approaches Weaver inquiring about his playing abilities and Weaver tells him he will have no part in the fix and take no money.Cicotte visits Lardner in his hotel room with Lardner trying to tactfully question him if there is anything going on or a fix, but Ciccotte denies it and Lardner reluctantly believes him.Joe Jackson is sitting on the bed in his hotel room with McMullen entering and placing a small sum of cash on the dresser drawer. Jackson simply accepts it and does not get up.Game 2. Lefty Williams is pitching. He is messing up constantly and Schaalk even more outraged than the previous game. A small aeroplane drops a dummy onto the field mocking the ballplayers. Game 2 has been lost and Schaalk angrily attacks Williams for his incompetence on the field with Gleason and Weaver breaking them up. Gandil is laughing and joking with other players and Gleason is angered at his jovial attitude thinking he's trying to deliberately lose and attacks him being broken away.Outside the ballplayers hotel, an effigy of the White Sox is being burned by fans of the Reds and there are numerous trips being made in between hotel rooms. Comiskey is awoken by Gleason to come to another room to straighten out the situation and Burns and Maharg go to Attell's room demanding cash to bet on the third game and given $10,000. They are being stiffed, but have no other way. Newcomer Dickie Kerr is being summoned to be the pitcher for the third game.Game 3 of the World Series. Chick Gandil gets to first base, but another player makes a hit and he deliberately slows down to get thrown out at second base and the sportswriters know right away he did it on purpose. Dickie Kerr (Jace Alexander) makes his first pitch and throughout the entire game pitching a no-hitter. Burns and Maharg are very upset, since all the $10,000 was placed on them losing the game.Buck Weaver is sitting on the front porch of his home with his wife (Barbara Garrick) coming out to talk to him. He tells her of the fix and tells her he wanted no part of it, but she supports him for what he's doing on his part.Game 4 is poorly played once again with Weaver upset at Ciccotte's bad pitching.Games 5 and 6 of the World Series the players are performing up to par again, but the gamblers are all outraged, despite their disappearance in the fix and Gandil being unable to contact them. Feeling they've now been abandoned, the ballplayers go back to their top performance. Arnold Rothstein is informed by an employee of his while he's at the barber shop at the end of game 5. At game 6, Monk pays a visit to Sport Sullivan in the stands for failure to live up to the gamblers expectations. Kid Gleason is being interviewed and insisting that all along his players all gave their best. Sullivan, by the orders of Monk and Rothstein, has a man dispatched that threatens to have Lefty Williams' wife killed if he does not lose the 7th game.Williams pitches a pathetic and painfully bad first inning and taken out of the the series by Kid Gleason. Joe Jackson hits a home run, but it does nothing to alleviate the losing score of the White Sox' game. They lose the 7th and final game of the World Series. By the end, Fullerton has five of the players circled on his list, with only Jackson, McMullen (who played only briefly at bat) and Weaver.Within the next year, sportswriters Lardner and Fullerton have interviewed Schaalk, Maharg, and maybe others about an alleged fix and now there is a $1,000 reward being offered by Comiskey for any alleged gambling. Weaver and Jackson are made aware of what's going on through the newspapers.Eddie Collins visits Comiskey at his office telling him he believes there might have been a fix, but does not want any reward money. Comiskey begrudgingly accepts Collins' suggestion and tells his secretary Grabiner to get his lawyer on the phone.Comiskey's lawyer, Alfred Austrian (Michael Laskin), tells Comiskey he wants to help him clean up the game, but business reasons will not help the players be found guilty in a court of law if they are guilty of gambling.Comiskey enlists a federal judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis (John Anderson, the used car salesman in Psycho), to act exclusively in the interest of baseball and to be the Commissioner of Baseball to clean up the gambling elements of the sport, announcing it to a group of powerful lawyers and sportswriters Lardner and Fullerton of his enlistment of the man.Arnold Rothstein and Sport Sullivan are leaving the country by boat and train to flee the trial and Abe Attell is shown at a train station with a broken nose trying to read a newspaper in Spanish.Ciccotte is with lawyer Austrian at the Cook Co. courthouse to testify before a grand jury and waiver of immunity tearfully regretting his crookedness at what's happened. Jackson does the same too, not knowing what's going on, but assured that they just want to get rid of the gamblers and not the ballplayers. He reluctantly signs an "X" mark. Joe leaves the courthouse with a child in the crowd pleading "Say it ain't so Joe". Lardner now circles Joe as one of the suspects in the fix.Austrian tells the eight indicted players to simply cooperate and that they have the best lawyers to defend them. Weaver dismisses him that he's being paid off in this, but Austrian tells him as long as he doesn't know what's going on, he's better off.Austrian meets with Rothstein's lawyer that Comiskey and Rothstein both indirectly, but mutually agree to do away with the signed confessions.The ballplayers have their first day in court. Fullerton and Lardner are present with Fullerton telling Lardner it depends on where the ball rolls on what the verdict will be. They are all told before the testimonies they have conspired to commit a confidence game from a Charles Nims, possibly a pseudonym for Arnold Rothstein.Comiskey testifies that he only suspected them throwing the game, Burns testifies he was approached and did not profit at all from the fix, and Maharg testifies all of the players associated with the exception of Jackson, due to his confession before the grand jury. The judge (Dick Cusack, John's father), asks it to be brought forward, but the confessions were "stolen", more than likely paid off by Rothstein or Comiskey from the meeting their lawyers had.Ciccotte is home with his wife (Maggie Renzi) that night telling her his plans for her and the kids if he goes to jail and tells her of all the injustice with the powers that be and that they are the conspiracy.The next hearing, Collins takes the stand telling the lawyer he didn't know about it because of his limited association with the players due to personal differences, but only suspected it, and Weaver has an outburst with the judge because he refused to take part of the scandal and gave it his all.in the games.Jackson is with his wife at his home telling her he just wants to go back and play baseball and doesn't know what he'll do if he doesn't.At the next hearing, their manager Kid Gleason testifies his years in baseball defending them that people make mistakes in life and are human, but declares his ballplayers are the best he's ever had.Buck Weaver is out hanging around the brownstones in his neighborhood with the local kids and tells them not to be so hard on the players and about how hard life gets when you're older assuring them he will be on the field next year playing his heart out.At the final hearing, the ballplayers are all found not guilty in court. They all cheer, but Comiskey is outraged that he will make them pay for all this. That night, they have a lavish welcoming dinner for them at a hotel.Judge Landis is making a statement before the sportswriters, to include Lardner and Fullerton, that no ballplayer that gambles or hears anything about gambling and doesn't inform anybody, will never play baseball again. This is a private sector decision made the courts are not able to do anything about.In New Jersey in 1925, a young trio of baseball fans watching a minor league team are sitting in the stands wondering who this guy Brown is who's playing so well. It's Shoeless Joe Jackson and one of them knows it's him, but one denies it and another one doesn't know who Joe Jackson is. Buck Weaver is in the stands watching as well and tells them Joe Jackson was the best ever, but that's not the man on the field.After "Brown" being cheered for his playing, it's announced on the screen that Joe Jackson and the other banned players never played professional baseball again and that Buck Weaver tried to clear his name until his death with his appeals denied.
    

Eight Men Out


            Three British MI6 agents, including one "on loan" to the American government, are killed under mysterious circumstances within 24 hours while monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique. One is killed at a meeting of the United Nations. The second is stabbed on a street in New Orleans while observing a restaurant called Fillet of Soul; his body is secreted in the coffin of a passing funeral procession. The third agent is killed on the island of San Monique during a voodoo rites ceremony; the high priest uses a poisonous snake to kill the man.James Bond is ordered by his boss, M, to investigate the deaths and their connections to Kananga. He is sent to New York City, where the first agent was killed and where Kananga is currently visiting the UN. As soon as Bond arrives in New York City, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter of the CIA and Bond narrowly escapes a potentially fatal car wreck. The driver's killer leads Bond to Mr. Big, a gangster who runs the chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr. Big that Bond first meets Solitaire, a beautiful virgin tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. Big orders his henchman to kill Bond, who, with the assistance of Felix Leiter, manages to escape unscathed.Bond follows Kananga to San Monique, where he subsequently meets Rosie Carver, a CIA double agent, who is subsequently murdered after Bond suspects her of working for Kananga. Later he meets the boatman Quarrel, Jr. who takes him to the home of Solitaire. Using a stacked deck of tarot cards only showing "The Lovers", Bond seduces her. Solitaire loses her virginity to Bond and also loses her foresight abilities and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga. Bond escapes the island with Solitaire on Quarrel Jr's boat and heads for Louisiana. When they arrive, Bond escapes Kananga's men in a small craft airport. He meets up with Felix Leiter and the two go to the New Orleans Fillet of Soul. When Leiter leaves their table momentarily, it drops down into the floor, where Mr. Big awaits Bond. Big harshly demands to know if Bond had slept with Solitaire. Bond says that the answer is a secret between himself and Solitaire and he'll only reveal the truth to Kananga himself. Big suddenly pulls prosthetic makeup from his face, revealing that he is actually Kananga.Kananga explains that he is producing two metric tonnes of heroin on San Monique and is protecting the poppy fields with camouflage and by exploiting locals' fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego, Mr. Big, Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free of charge on the market, which will drive all the other drug cartels out of business, increase the number of addicts, and give Kananga a monopoly of the heroin market. Using the serial number on Bond's watch, Kananga tests Solitaire's truthsaying powers. She fails but Kananga does not reveal the outcome in front of Bond; after Bond is escorted out of the room, he chastises Solitaire harshly for her betrayal and leaves her in the hands of Baron Samedi to be sacrificed in ritual on San Monique.Kananga turns Bond over to Tee Hee Johnson, a thug with a mechanical arm, who takes Bond to the Farm, a community in the Louisiana backwoods filled with alligators and crocodiles and housing one of Kanaga's heroin labs. Bond is left on a small island to be food for the gators but he jumps on the backs of the reptiles to reach the shore. He sets the Farm on fire, killing some of Kananga's men. He steals a speedboat leading to a furious chase with Kananga's men in pursuit and the local sheriff, J.W. Pepper, and the Louisiana state police trying to blockade Bond and his pursuers. Bond evades them all and is met by Leiter who informs him that Kananga, Samedi and Solitaire left for San Monique.Bond goes back to San Monique, ordering Quarrel Jr to plant explosives in the poppy fields. Bond interrupts the voodoo sacrifice, rescuing Solitaire. While Bond holds the ritual attendees at bay, Baron Samedi pops up from a grave. Bond shoots him, finding he's a ceramic decoy, however, the real Samedi appears. Bond fights the man briefly & the villain ends up falling in a coffin full of poisonous snakes, seemingly bitten to death. Bond and Solitaire travel below ground into Kananga's lair. They find Kananga, who tells Bond that his wet suit was found and that the explosives he used on the poppy fields have done too little damage to interrupt production. Bond and Solitaire are lashed to a small crane over a shark pool; Kananga slashes Bond's forearm several times, drawing blood to bait the sharks. Using his magnetic watch, Bond retrieves a gas pellet from his shark gun and cuts the ropes holding him. After a brief fight with Kananga, he forces the gas pellet in Kananga's mouth, rapidly inflating the villain who floats to the top of the room and explodes.After the job is done, Felix leaves Bond and Solitaire on a train out of the country. Tee Hee makes a last attempt on Bond's life and is ejected from their train compartment at high speed. However Baron Samedi is seen perched on the nose of the speeding train in his voodoo ensemble and laughing heartily.
    

Live and Let Die


            In rural Montana, friends Jack McKee (Jeff Bridges) and Cecil Colson (Sam Waterston) illegally shoot a steer on the large "B Bar Lazy T" ranch, cut the animal into pieces with a chainsaw, and give the meat to their landlady to cover that month's rent. Ranch hands Curt and Burt (Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Bright) find the remains of the steer and report the crime to their boss, ranch owner John Brown (Clifton James), who becomes enraged. He was once a successful hairdressing manufacturer in Schenectady, New York, but moved to Montana to purchase several ranches and consolidate them into the B Bar Lazy T. Now he roams his property in a private helicopter.Meanwhile, Jack introduces Cecil to Mary Fargo (Maggie Wellman), the sister of Jack's girl friend, Betty Fargo (Patti D'Arbanville), and they ride into the hills to round up horses belonging to the girls' father, Wilbur Fargo (Bert Conway). Pairing off, Jack and Betty have sex, while Cecil and Mary smoke marijuana.At the B Bar Lazy T, Brown's wife, Cora (Elizabeth Ashley), calls Burt and Curt to the ranch house to ask why they have not found the rustlers, then makes sexual innuendos and complains about their unresponsiveness. Later, Cora convinces her husband to "declare war" in the local newspaper because the rustlers have continued to pilfer their steers. The recent shootings make the front page.When Jack and Cecil attend a "Cattle Expo," Jack approaches Brown, who is exhibiting a $50,000 white bull, and asks a few innocent-sounding questions. Later, Jack and Cecil steal the bull, deliver a $50,000 ransom note to Brown, and hide in an abandoned barn while the money is delivered from the helicopter. After escaping with the $50,000, they give instructions for Brown to find his bull in the room of a local motel. Flush with cash, Jack and Cecil take separate vacations to their home towns.Cecil, a Native American half-breed, visits his father, Mr. Colson (Joe Spinell), on the reservation where he grew up. They fish in a local lake and reminisce, until the elder Colson wonders how Cecil, despite his chronic unemployment, is able to afford a boat and a pickup truck.Jack flies home to visit his wealthy family, but over dinner with his parents (Richard McMurray and Danna Hansen) and his former wife, Anna (Doria Cooke), unresolved disappointments arise. His parents leave the room in anger, Anna tries to rekindle their relationship, and Jack smashes the furniture, claiming she drives him crazy.Back in Montana, Jack and Cecil run into Burt and Curt at a bar and try to extract information about the ranch. Curt tells them Brown has called in a "stock detective" to track down the rustlers, then adds that he knows the guilty parties: "It's you," he says. Realizing they must recruit the ranch hands as partners, Jack and Cecil take them to a local bordello and pay for Burt and Curt to have sex with all the women there, at a cost of $350. The next morning, the four men discuss the ranch and agree to a four-way split of all proceeds.Meanwhile, Henry Beige (Slim Pickens), an aging, partly disabled detective, and his "niece," Laura Beige (Charlene Dallas), arrive at the ranch and move into private bedrooms. Beige confesses to Brown that he is good at his job because he was once a cattle rustler himself. Burt and Curt are both drawn to Laura, a young, sexy woman who feigns innocence but drinks whiskey from the bottle when nobody is looking.Later, as Cecil shoots a bull from Jack's pickup truck with his old Indian rifle, Brown's helicopter suddenly appears and gives chase. When the aircraft traps them, Burt and Curt reveal themselves as the pursuers, and tell Jack and Cecil they wanted them to see how poorly they planned their crime. Also, Curt says they have a better deal in the works. Later, Brown and Beige arrive to examine the bull's carcass. When Beige extracts the bullet, he recognizes it as a fifty-caliber round from an old buffalo rifle.Meanwhile, Jack and Cecil invite Betty and Mary to their house, where they have a catered dinner complete with a bluegrass band. The couples dance, become inebriated, and wake up in the morning, nude in bed. The girls' father, Wilbur Fargo, storms into the house, bringing his entire family to shame them. Jack fires his gun at Wilbur and demands he kneel down and beg for his daughters' forgiveness.Later, Cecil steals Wilbur's Lincoln Continental automobile, drives it onto Brown's ranch, and uses it for target practice with his buffalo rifle. When Brown finds the car and has it towed to the ranch house, he tells Beige the bullet holes in the metal must have been made by the same fifty-caliber bullets that killed his bulls. He berates Beige for not doing his job. Meanwhile, Curt courts Laura and praises her for being an old-fashioned, innocent woman. When he says he loves her and gently kisses her, Laura becomes sexually aggressive. Afterward, Curt tells Burt he plans to marry her.Meanwhile, after learning from a policeman that the Lincoln Continental belongs to Wilbur Fargo, Brown goes to Wilbur's house and guesses from the man's demeanor that he knows who stole the car. However, Wilbur refuses to say anything. At the dinner table, Brown announces that he will solve the crime and no longer needs Beige. The next day, Brown returns to Wilbur's house with policemen and has him arrested for rustling.Elsewhere, Jack and Cecil rent a tractor-and-trailer, drive onto the ranch, and round up more than a dozen head of cattle. As they drive away, however, they are blocked by Henry Beige, who is hosting a pie contest with half a dozen policemen and more than a dozen local women. The policemen arrest Jack and Cecil. Meanwhile, other police take Curt and Burt into custody.Back at the ranch house, Beige explains that cattle rustling is usually an "inside job," and all he had to do was wait for either Curt and Burt to make a mistake. Brown pays Beige for his services, and Laura says she is anxious to get her "cut" for learning the details of the theft from Curt.In the final scene, Jack and Cecil ride horses at a ranch. They pass a sign that says they are on the Rancho Deluxe prison ranch.
    

Rancho Deluxe


            The Bears, a ragtag San Fernando Valley youth baseball team, reconvene without their former coach and star pitcher (Note: no mention is ever made to the absence of Coach Morris Buttermaker or Amanda Whurlizer). A new, austere coach, Mr. Manning (Dolph Sweet), prepares the team for a big game to be played at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas; the winner will travel to Japan to play a Japanese team. Appalled by the team's lack of discipline, Manning fires catcher Mike Engelberg (Jeffery Louis Starr) before they take the field. The team's motorcycle-riding star, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), disrupts practice, leading the Bears to walk out and effectively ending Manning's tenure as coach.Three of the players, Engelberg, Ogilvie (Alfred Lutter), and Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) visit the home of teammate Timmy "The Big Looper" Lupus (Quinn Smith), who is laid up with a broken leg and will not be making the trip to Texas. Ogilvie points out that none of them will be going to Houston if they cannot find a competent coach and a decent pitcher.Later, Kelly finds a new pitcher, Carmen Ronzonni (Jimmy Baio), who has moved from the East Coast. Kelly rejoins the team and introduces the local park's elderly and senile groundskeeper, Lester Eastland (Fred Stuthman), claiming that the man is the Bears' new coach. The players trick their parents into thinking that Lester will accompany them to Houston, then depart without a chaperon in a possibly stolen van procured by Carmen Ronzonni and driven by 13-year-old Kelly.The team stops for the night at a motel where they pile into a double room. Kelly goes off to smoke cigarettes and pulls a photograph of a man from his pocket. When Kelly returns, Tanner is watching Knute Rockne-All American on television, just as Pat O'Brien delivers his "Win one for the Gipper" speech.The next day, the Bears reach New Mexico and a group of Native Americans kids challenge them to a game in a vacant lot. At first, pitcher Carmen cannot get the ball over the plate and then when he does, he cannot get the other team out, resulting in a disastrous loss.Arriving in Texas, the Bears spot the Astrodome and speculate that their opponents, the Toros, are dirt farmers. At a practice field, the Toros drill with military precision as the game's sponsor, Sy Orlansky (Clifton James), impatiently waits for the Bears to arrive. Morrie Slaytor (Pat Corley), the Toros' coach, instructs his assistant to see if the El Paso Falcons team is still available. Kelly sets the Bears up in a dirty hotel, but the police show up and inquire about the van parked out front. Plainclothes Officer Mackie (Lane Smith) wants to know who drove the van, who it belongs to, and who their chaperon is? Kelly says their coach is not there and leaves for a nearby plant, where he waits for the shift to end, and greets the man in his photograph, his divorced estranged father Mike Leak (William Devane). Kelly asks Mike to be the Bears' coach and he reluctantly agrees.At the hotel, Mike introduces himself to Mackie as 'Coach Leak'. Mackie says as long as the van checks out, everything is fine. On a practice field, the boys tell Mike that they do not need a coach, they just need an adult to go on the field with them, so Mike watches their inept play from the sidelines. When Carmen hits Tanner with a pitch, triggering a minor brawl, Mike takes the team for pizza and they read about themselves in the local newspaper.Sometime later, the Bears arrive at the field to find the El Paso Falcons are already there. Mike introduces himself to Sy, who mistakes the Falcons for the Bears, but Mike points out the real Bears. Sy challenges Slaytor over the confusion, telling him that he wants the team from the newspaper because they have a great story. After checking in at the Houston Hilton with expenses paid by Sy's company, the Bears head back to the practice field where Mike teaches the boys fundamentals and Ogilvie gets a detailed scouting report on the Toros from a local girl. Mike tells Carmen to stop impersonating major league pitchers and just throw like himself, which turns out to be pretty good. Mike confronts Kelly about his smoking and Kelly storms off. He bumps into some of the Toros and one of them repeatedly uses a gay slur to describe the Bears and their coach and a fight ensues, but Kelly is separated from his rival. Now angrier, Kelly runs away.Back at the hotel, the team cannot find Kelly, but watch themselves in a television news report. When Mike finds Kelly in a pool hall, his son is upset that Mike did not recognize him immediately at the plant. Mike left eight years earlier, when Kelly was five, after giving the boy a bicycle. Kelly tells Mike that he never rode the bike because he saw it as a bribe and never accepted the deal. Mike asks if Kelly would have looked him up if he had not needed a coach?On game day in the locker room, the team worries that Kelly will not return, but Tanner gives a "win one for the Big Looper" speech, and Kelly arrives at the last minute. Between games of the doubleheader, a scaled down field with shorter baselines is set up. The Toros quickly take a 5-0 lead, but due to a time limit an official calls the game after only two innings. Mike argues that they deserve to finish the game, as Tanner refuses to leave the field and is chased by two officials. A member of the Astros, Robert J. Watson, shouts "Let them play," and Mike and the Bears get the crowd to join in the chant. The officials reverse their decision and the game continues. The Bears chip away at the Toros' lead.With two out in the bottom of the fourth and the score at 5-2, Carmen steps to the plate and hits the ball to the fence for a bases-clearing double. He takes off for third, the Toros throw the ball away, and Carmen slides home safely as the Bears win, 6-5 and are going to Japan. Alone in the runway to the locker room after the game, Kelly tells Mike that he would have found him even if they did not need a coach.In the final scene back in California, Kelly stops by the ball field and gives Lester Eastland a silent nod of thanks.
    

Clifton James

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