Today’s guest post comes from a great friend of 7 Reasons, Simon Best.  When he’s not thinking about baseball or pancakes, Simon can be found working with youths and – having finally finished his doctoral thesis – he is soon to become Dr Beat, a typo that we really hope will catch on.   1.  Simplicity.  Baseball is essentially very simple. One guy (a pitcher) chucks a ball to another (a catcher).  The batter...

    1.  Women.  Unusually for baseball films, the central character is a woman.  This shouldn’t be unusual – some of the most passionate and knowledgeable sport fans I know are women – but it is.  The use of a female narrator and the fact that the baseball isn’t the only story in the movie – the journey that Susan Sarandon’s character goes on isn’t really about baseball at all – gives it a totally...

1.  Timing. Five years ago, when he told a Congressional committee that he “hadn’t come to talk about the past”, before refusing to discuss his own drug use, Mark McGwire had nothing to gain by discussing it.  Now though, with accusations and witness testimonies about his drug use mounting – his own brother’s even – Mark McGwire does have something to gain from admitting his drug use.  The Cardinals couldn’t employ a batting...