Paper Moon gave Jami a hankerin' for the other famous Tatum O'Neal film, and so here we are. This is more Walter Matthau's film (O'Neal doesn't even show up until at least 20 minutes in, and doesn't get fully on board for some time after that), and no bad thing for that. Matthau is more subdued than he can be, more rueful, less shyster-ish. There's a lot of him just thinking, processing, and he does it beautifully. Only a couple of times does he explode, and it's not explosions played for comedy, it's genuinely nasty outbursts, and all the more powerful for that.
The film is definitely a seventies film, or should I say, a pre-Spielberg film. The kids all look like actual kids, not child actors. There's no John Williams score - in fact I don't think there's any score at all. Certainly you're not browbeaten into a certain mood. And nothing is really explained. We're just dropped into the action with Matthau's Coach Buttermaker, a former minor leaguer, who once (more than once!) struck out Ted Williams (spring training, 1948), but who now cleans pools, all the equipment sticking out of the back of his giant 70's boat of a car, whose windshield gets cracked by a baseball the first day with his team and never gets repaired the rest of the movie. Also there is much casual use by the children of ethnic slurs (and "faggot," although, oddly, the foulest-mouthed boy in this regard, a little terrier of a blond kid, says "crud" more than anything else).
We also see the bad kid (Kelly Leak - played by Jackie Earl Haley, who would go on to play Rorschach and Freddie Krueger)
who is cajoled into joining the team by Tatum O'Neal's Amanda Wurlitzer (daughter of Buttermaker's ex-girlfriend, and his aptest pupil by far) by a date at a Rolling Stones gig (another sign of the age - what kids could afford a Rolling Stones gig these days?). When Buttermaker expresses his disapproval of this plan, she informs him that she knows girls her age on the pill. She also talks a fair amount about her developing chest, especially as she gets hit particularly hard in it by a baserunner, and this while she's 13 years old, playing a 12 year old.
Anyway, the basic structure of the film is laughably simple: washed up ball player takes over terrible team and coaches them to the final. In later years it would be A League of Our Own. So it's the interactions that are the thing, and Matthau with a bunch of kids is magic. He raises all their games, acting more than baseball. The one black kid who is a disgrace to his more athletically gifted brothers and who idolizes Hank Aaron learns how to bunt and use his speed. The fat kid who plays catcher becomes a reliable batsman. The runtiest blond kid whose nose is always running finally has somebody stand up for him (the slightly bigger foul-mouthed blond kid) and makes a key catch. Errors are cut down on. Fielding tricks are learnt. And Buttermaker has to regain his competitiveness only for it to consume him and the sight of the opposing coach driving his own kid away from him
to teach him what really matters. (He also has to get uniforms and a sponsor - the others have actual franchises like Denny's and Pizza Hut - he gets a Bail Bonds firm.)
And that's about it. Very small scale. Buttermaker is not re-united with Amanda's mother, despite her machinations, and it's probably for the best. And he goes back to his job cleaning pools (and her to her job selling maps to the stars' homes to hicks from Iowa). But we get to hang out with them for one glorious Summer, on grounds with the mountains in the background, as Buttermaker drinks endless cans of Bud, the old kind, with the ring pulls that come off entirely.
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