As for the night game in The Natural, it seemed to me that the scheduled day game hit some postponements because of rain (as evidenced by the rain after the game) which delayed it until the lights were necessary.

Having said all that, I still list “The Natural” as my all-time favorite movie (at least when I don’t bump “Airplane” into first).

Then I come here.

Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, Joe. Seriously, thanks.

And yes, for goodness sakes … what soccer team did you pick?

BTW, there was a guy who started a blog called “If I Blog It They Will Come,” for the sole purpose of getting Kevin Costner to send a picture of himself reading the blog. Last year he succeeded:

http://ifiblogit.blogspot.com/2007/09/success.html

Afterward he turned his attention to get Robin Williams to do the same. Still nothing… and to be quite honest, looking over the sheer volume of posts asking Robin to sent a picture creeped me out…

Sure Johnny, that would have worked, but:

Up to the 1939 season, six Major League teams had played night games at their home parks. The Cincinnatti Reds, the Brooklyn (Trolley) Dodgers, The A’s and Phillies of Phillidelphia (both at Shibe Park), the Cleveland Indians, and the Chicago White Sox.

In 1939, the Reds won the NL Pennant with a record of 97-57 and were able to clinch with 2 games left in the season and finished 4.5 games ahead of the Cardinals. They also did not have a start time past 2:00 in their last series of the season…against Pittsburgh. The National League’s New York representative did not play a night game the final month of the season. In fact, they seem to only have played a handful, and only from May thru August.

It is unlikely that a team from NY would wait until the night time on October 1 to play a game that would decide the Pennant. I can’t remember if the game in the movie was the last game of the season, or a one game playoff a’la C’s and G’s 1908 or D’s and G’s 1951. If it were, that would render things moot, as the first Postseason night game occoured October 13, 1971; Game 4 of the 1971 World Series.

Also unlikely is the game starting in the late afternoon, and moving into the night where lights would be necessary. Games usually started between 1:00 and 2:30, with sunset in New York generally around 6:28 PM on October 1, the day that the NL’s last game was played in 1939. That would mean that the game would have lasted into the 3.5-4 hour range for the last scene to happen in the dark. However, the game was pretty much a pitcher’s duel, and would have surely been much shorter than that.

The thing that has always bothered me about the movie is when Hobbs knocks the cover off the ball, it is not yet raining, yet by the time the runners are rounding third, they are already running thru puddles…that had formed by the time the ball (or what was left of it) had hit the gound in RF.

And while I shouldn’t mix sports movie metaphors, it seems like Hamilton is more like Roy (Tin Cup) McAvoy. He may have lost the tournament, but he won the hearts of the fans with his exploits.

What fun to watch last night. The fans were the winners.