Mr. 3000 is the worst. I was never much of a Bernie Mac fan, and I really didn't like him on October 14, 2003. But I was looking for new baseball movies for this year and the previews I saw of Mr. 3000 seemed ok.
The previews fooled me.
The story is this...Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) is the star of the Milwaukee Brewers, a selfish, egotistical, reporter-hating, one-earring wearing jerk. My guess is that Stan Ross was based on this
He gets his 3,000 hit in the midst of the 1995 pennant race. Figuring that 3000 is the magic number to get into Cooperstown even if the reporters don't like him, he retires after the game. That didn't endear him to his now former teammates.
In retirement, Ross opens a strip mall of 3000 themed stores. But despite 3000 hits, he is not elected into the Hall of Fame. And then, nine years after his retirement, it's discovered that he was credited twice for three hits from one game, and so his actual total is 2,997. He realizes that he will never make it into the Hall without 3,000 hits, so at age 47 he plans a comeback to get the three hits.
The Brewers agree to the plan as a way increase their weak attendance. Earlier in the season, Ross convinced them to retire his number and they drew one of their biggest crowds of the season.
The movie now becomes so predictable that it was a giant bore to me. Ross works out for the comeback but realizes he is not in very good shape. The Brewers' new star and Ross don't get along. He reconnects with an old girlfriend. Its all cliche sports movie junk.
The twist at the end (spoiler alert) is that Ross passes up a chance for #3000 in his final at bat, and instead lays down a surprise bunt to bring in the winning run so the Brewers can climb into third place. (At least when Jake Taylor put down his surprise bunt in Major League, it helped the Indians win the division). The season and his career end and he embraces his new identity as Mr. 2,999.
The script wasn't funny. The plot was predicable. The characters were vanilla. The movie was bad.
The only redeeming part of the movie is that it allowed me to see a little baseball in January.
CUBS CONNECTION
Very little here. A road trip to Wrigley is mentioned an this short picture shows what is supposed to be the Cubs' home, but...
...definitely isn't. Otherwise, the Cubs were clear of this stinker.
Last year I made baseball cards that were year-appropriate for the movie. I plan to for most of this year's flicks, too, but I didn't bother with Mr. 3000. There were, however, some prop cards made for the movie.
Here a couple teammates quiz each other on Ross' stats. It's hard to see, so I blew up the picture a bit and rotated it...
....they've got a....
...Topps 87 fake card. The back was shown in detail, and the prop department almost had it nailed
Almost. The back they made was actually from the 1987 traded set.
....of a grayish color. They blew it with the card number too. A star like Stan Ross would have had a _ _ 0 or _ _ 5 card. In the 1987 set, #586 belonged to
Ben Oglivie---not a hall of famer!
Maybe they were being super geeky and it was a Tiffany card.
ReplyDeleteThough having said that, if they were really being that cute, they would have known to use Comic Sans on the back and not some generic Arial crap.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. Was searching the internet for his stats. It's too bad whoever drew up the stats also didn't account for the strike-shortened 1981 and 1994 seasons!
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