Mr. Baseball

1992
15
1h 48m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Jack Elliot, once a great baseball player, is forced to play in Japan where his brash, egotistical ways cause friction with his new teammates and friends.Jack Elliot, once a great baseball player, is forced to play in Japan where his brash, egotistical ways cause friction with his new teammates and friends.Jack Elliot, once a great baseball player, is forced to play in Japan where his brash, egotistical ways cause friction with his new teammates and friends.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.0/10

12K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

User reviews65

Featured review

6/10

A slugger can hit anywhere.

Even if you are not a baseball fan, you will enjoy MR. BASEBALL. An aging Major League home run slugger Jack Elliot(Tom Selleck)is traded to the Dragons, a favorite ball team in Japan. American ballplayers are treated like rock 'n' roll stars in Japan and Jack is no exception. The American slugger has trouble fitting into the eastern society and thanks to his interpreter(Kosuke Toyohara)he doesn't completely alienate himself. Another American player "Hammer" Dubois(Dennis Haysbert)tries to help big Jack fit in, but of course the Dragon's new home run hitter is pretty hard headed.

Elliot finds himself in his coach's(Ken Takakura)doghouse more often than not. The team finds him easy to dislike. Unknowingly he finds romance with the coach's daughter(Aya Takanashi)and that is just part of the humor found in this likable and short of heartwarming movie. Most of the humor comes from Jack's interpreter. Selleck fits the role pretty well. Ted Danson would have been another good choice for the role, but Selleck provides enough arrogance to carry it off. Not a total waste of time, but there is doubts about a double header. Twice is enough for me.

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
At one point in the movie, when the pitchers refuse to pitch to Selleck's character because they don't want him to break the home run record, Selleck turns his bat the other way around and challenges pitchers to pitch to him as a sign of protest. This comes from a real-life incident a few years before the movie in the Japan Leagues when Hanshin Tigers slugger Randy Bass was on the verge of breaking the single season home run record there and pitchers refused to pitch to him. Bass similarly turned his bat upside down to protest.

Goofs
The American bar Max takes Jack to in Japan to meet other American players is actually a Sports Bar in Los Angeles. All of the patrons and bartenders/servers are American and all of the beer signs and posters are in English and if you look outside the window you can clearly see it's Los Angeles and not Japan.

Quotes
[Jack just found out that Uchiyama is fluent in English]
Uchiyama: I am the Japanese manager for Japanese baseball team that you agreed to play for. It is your duty to learn my ways, not the other way around!
Jack Elliot: [to Hiroko] Different language, same attitude! Let's go!

Alternate versions
The Japanese theatrical version had three additional scenes. The first additional scene is following Jack and Hiroko's first dinner together, where she drops him off at his apartment building. The second scene is an extension of Jack and Hiroko visiting a shrine. The third has Jack and Uchiyama at a graveyard.