“Alright let me break it down to you right quick…”

The other night I decided I was in the mood to watch an old favorite of mine, Hardball. I have to say that Hardball is my favorite sports movie EVER. The title of this post is my favorite line in the movie, I say it all the time. The movie takes place in some housing projects in Chicago, and is about a kids baseball team. Keanu Reeves plays Connor O’Neil, who is a drunk and a gambler. Keanu is really the only big name in the movie, other than that the cast is made of virtual unknowns. Connor(Reeves) is only coaching this team because he is being paid $500 a week to pay off gambling debts. He meets the team one afternoon and sees that this job is not going to be as easy as he thinks it will be, they are arguing and fighting throughout the entire practice. Throughout the movie the children are able to teach Connor to care about other people than just himself. As the movie goes on Connor becomes more and more involved in the children’s lives and tries to help them along the way. The movie showed how hard it was to live in the projects for these kids, it shows the gangs and the violence that comes with the neighborhood. We see that the children do not have anything else going for them, they rely on baseball and on Coach Connor to help them. Baseball helps keep them out of trouble and shows them that not everyone will let them down. There are times in the movie when you are going to laugh and there are definitely times when you are going to cry, because of this I find that the movie has a little bit of everything and is the reason I love it.

Adrienne