The Natural (Updated)
Posted: May 16th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball, Media | 17 Comments »
Tough times. Here is the famous and climactic scene from The Natural between sportswriter Max Mercy and star Roy Hobbs … re-imagined as it might have happened in 2009.
Hobbs: Still dogging me, huh, Max?
Mercy: End of the road, Hobbs.
Hobbs: You wanna hear what I think our chances are?
Mercy: You read my mind.
Hobbs: That takes all of three seconds.
Mercy: They come and they go Hobbs … They come and they go. I’ll be around here longer than you or anybody else.
Hobbs: Is that right?
Mercy: Well, um, actually, probably not. I guess it depends on our continuing efforts to find a working business model as advertising declines, and the bottom drops out of the print classified advertising market, and more readership moves to the internet. And there’s also the crippling debt our companies have taken on … stock prices keep dropping. The economy’s not helping either; we are overexposed to the housing crisis. They keep telling us we need to get involved in new social media opportunities.
Hobbs: How’s that working out for you?
Mercy: Not too great, actually. Hold on … I should really Twitter this: “Talking with Hobbs. He’s gonna play. A Max Mercy Exclusive!”
Hobbs: Catchy. But I Twittered that ten minutes ago.
Mercy: Dammit. You sure did. And, look, it’s already on ESPN.com — Jayson Stark, man, he gets everything.
Hobbs: That the new iPhone? I was thinking about getting one of those.
Mercy: Yeah. Still don’t know how to use it. Hold on here, what’s this? Whoa whoa, just got an alert, looks like that bat boy of yours, Bobby … he’s talking about writing a book that says he injected you with steroids and human growth hormone back when you went out to “pick out a really good piece of wood” to carve a baseball bat.
Hobbs: What? That’s is categorically false. We were just making him a bat. That ungrateful little … hey, hey, wait, what are you doing? Don’t Twitter that. It’s not true.
Mercy: I’m here to protect this game.
Hobbs: Whose game? I can’t believe that Bobby would write that. I’ve never done steroids in my life. My father died of a heart attack by a tree with this really sweeping music playing. It would be suicide for me to do steroids.
Mercy: I don’t know … 38-year-old guy shows up, hits long homers. And you’re coming off a serious injury. Pretty suspicious. That opposite field shot in Chicago, that was ridiculous.
Hobbs: Did you ever play ball Max?
Mercy: No, never have. But I make it a little more fun to watch, you see. And after today, whether you’re a goat or a hero … you’re going to make me a great story. And blog post. And Facebook status update. And live chat. And, you know, we could always write a book together burying that Bobby kid.
Hobbs: Maybe. Text me after the game.
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Seems like you’re somehow defending Roger Clemens. And we all know you don’t really like it. This articule is fun but confusing.
seriously, joe, you’re too damn good. this is awesome. i love it. just perfect. makes me want to get out of the business (well, that may have already happened) because i’m not this good. damn.
This is one of the finest pieces of satirical writing I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. That being said, it’s depressingly accurate
Oh C’mon. Hobbs couldn’t have done steroids. If he did he would have had an extra ear growing out of his forhead.
Outstanding. I retweeted it.
“… depends on our continuing efforts to find a working business model as advertising declines… ” — Just fantastic. You’re the best, Joe.
Well done.
Max could draw pretty well, so I think he would have been all right no matter what the medium was.
Hobbs’ story almost certainly would have come out in today’s world. Max wouldn’t have had to have a questionnaire in a thousand papers all over the west or whatever it was, someone would have twittered him about Roy.
Now THAT was funny. My favorite move to boot.
Let’s got the Bobbys together, work in a product placement with Brimley and oatmeal, and we’ve got a hit on our hands!
I’m a big fan of Bernard Malamud–I especially enjoyed “The Assistant” and “The Fixer.” Being both a baseball and a Malamud fan, I thought I’d love “The Natural,” but I never really understood it. Can someone explain it, or point me to a website that does?
Great post, Joe.
The Natural (the book, not the movie, which changes the message entirely) was Malamud’s first novel. The theme is that basically nobody ever learns anything. Fairly depressing, but that’s not unusual for Malamud. While I liked it, it’s certainly not to the caliber of The Assistant (probably his finest) or others. I like The Fixer also, and you likely know it is based on an actual historical case.
The book was very good. The movie really only kept the characters and a very general outline of the plot, but completely changed the whole point of the book. I don’t like that.
I like Malamud too but I didn’t like “The Natural” as a book. I had seen the movie long before I read the book and understood that it was much different; when I eventually read the book, I was disappointed. I thought the baseball parts were so unreal(even recognizing that it was fantasy) that it distracted from the story. But maybe that was because of being a baseball fan.
In 2009 Hobbs DEFINITELY does not downgrade from Basinger to Close.
I love this post.
this is so fucking useless. DONT YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND I HAVE A PAPER DUE TOMORROW!!!! THAT I NEED TO TURN IN TO GRADUATE! FUCKKKK THIS