Recently we saw The Rookie. Its the story of a 30 something small town baseball coach that becomes a major league pitcher.

It’s actually a really good little movie. Dennis Quade stars as Jim Morris in the true story of how Morris became a major league pitcher. Morris, who grows up moving from town to town as an army brat finally ends up in a small Texan town at about 12 years of age. He stays in the town as he grows up and becomes the high school science teacher and baseball coach. His little team basically stinks, and wins 1 game a season. Since he hasn’t thrown since college due to a very serious injury he has no idea how much power he really has. When one of the players gets him to throw some it quickly comes back. The students can’t believe it. They make a deal with him that if they win their division, which they do, that he’ll have to go to open tryouts for the minors, which he does.

At his try out he blows them away with his 98 mph fast ball. No one can believe it. They all thing the radar guns have to be broken. They aren’t. He gets called to the minors and after about 3-4 months gets called up to pitch in the majors. In his first appearance he strikes the guy out on 4 pitches – all fastballs (although the movie only shows the 3 strikes). Not a must see but worth a watch.