The third, and as far as I know, final, movie in the Major League series, shifts the focus to minor league baseball, as the title suggests. Scott Bakula steps in as the veteran whose career has run out, a long-time pitcher offered the chance to coach the Minnesota Twins' AAA team. The Twins are owned by Roger Dorn (still played by Corbin Bernson). Kind of interesting since Major League 2 partially revolved around Dorn retiring and buying the Cleveland Indians, then being so low on cash he had to let the previous owner buy back in.
I would say that should preclude a guy from being approved to buy another franchise, but having seen some of the jackasses Major League Baseball has let own teams (the McCourts with the Dodgers, the dipshits that owned the Mets and got Ponzi schemed, literally anyone who has ever owned the Florida Marlins), it's not farfetched.
The movie revolves around a rivalry between Bakula and the Twins' manager, played by Ted McGinley (aka the second Mr. Darcy on Married with Children). I'm not clear on what the rivalry is about other than McGinley's character is an obnoxious, condescending, short-tempered prick, but maybe that's enough. So there end up being two games between the big league squad and the minor league team, one in each team's park, which is, fine. Whereas the first two movies established a team opposing Cleveland as the overwhelming bully that must be overcome, this one takes the approach that the two teams are basically even, because the minor league club plays together and the big money guys do not.
I would think not wanting to lose to a bunch of minor leaguers would be incentive enough for the Twins to run roughshod over the Buzz, just to keep the other major league teams from laughing at them. But maybe they enjoyed watching their manager spaz out about it too much.
They brought back some characters besides Dorn from the first two movies. Bob Ueker's there as the Buzz announcer, apparently off the sauce now. Dennis Haysbert hasn't gotten to play the President in 24 yet (jeez, remember when that show was such a big deal?) so here's Pedro Cerrano. He seems to just show up wanting to play, and they let him join. I guess it's veteran leadership, although they already seemed to have that. They bring back the Rube Baker and Taka Tanaka characters from the second movie as well which is fine, whatever.
Then they try to fill in the gaps with some new characters. A third baseman that's a converted ballet dancer. A pair of twins for the middle infield combo. Another lifetime minor leaguer everyone calls "Pops". Seems odd to have another character like that when that's pretty much what Bakula was, but I guess they figured they needed a player version and a coach version.
The two that get the most focus are a young goofball hardthrowing pitcher everyone calls "Hog", and a highly regarded young slugger, played by Walton Goggins. Yes, the guy who goes on to be on The Shield, Justified, multiple Tarantino films, etc. That guy. Really weird to see him in this role. Not that there's a lot to it. He has to be arrogant and not listen to the voice of wisdom, then get humbled in the majors and return ready to learn from Bakula how to Play the Game the Right Way.
No comments:
Post a Comment