The Natural

"Roy Hobbs: I coulda been better. I coulda broke every record in the book. Iris Gaines: And then? Roy Hobbs: And then? And then when I walked down the street people would've looked and they would've said there goes 'Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.'"

The Natural is a 1984 film starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, a supernaturally gifted young baseball talent whose career is derailed when he is shot in the gut by a deranged fan. Years later he makes his belated big league debut, but his dark secret threatens to destroy him.


 * Betty and Veronica: Iris and Memo.
 * Big Game
 * Dawson Casting: 48-year-old Redford plays a teenaged baseball prospect in the opening sequence. Even after the flash-forward, he's too old to play a big league athlete. He tends to get forgiven because, y'know, it's Robert Redford.
 * And they make a minor plot point of his being "the oldest rookie", have other players calling him Grandpa, stuff like that.
 * Down to the Last Play
 * Expy: "The Whammer", played by Joe Don Baker, is obviously inspired by Babe Ruth. For that matter Hobbs is both a tremendous pitcher (he strikes out the Whammer) and a fearsome slugger, much as Ruth was in real life.
 * The Film of the Book: Adapted from the novel by Bernard Malamud. Malamud's novel has a, while the movie has a completely opposite ending.
 * Give Me A Bat: "Pick me a winner, Bobby."
 * Gretzky Has the Ball: The New York Knights somehow are batting in the bottom of the inning in Chicago despite being the visiting team.
 * Hair of Gold: Iris.
 * I Call It Vera: "Wonderboy"
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: Randy Newman's score sounds suspiciously like Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man".
 * Loony Fan: "Are you the best there ever was?"
 * Noodle Incident: Baseball players are renowned for being hilariously superstitious. For the Knights, the number 11 is unlucky for some unexplained reason, and their supply manager warns Roy off.
 * Put Me in Coach: Knights manager Pop Fisher is initially highly reluctant to let his absurdly old rookie play in a game.
 * Redemption Quest
 * Someone to Remember Him By: Iris has a secret.
 * Throwing the Fight: The Judge wants his own players to throw the climactic game so that he can force out Pop Fisher and take total control of the team.
 * Truth in Television: Players have indeed hit home runs into scoreboard clocks, light arrays, and through the outfield fence. When Greg "The Bull" Luzinski was playing for the Phillies back in the 1970s, he hit a ball off the Jumbotron. It started﻿ smoking and they had to turn it off.
 * The Vamp: Memo.
 * Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Eddie Waitkus was shot in the chest in his hotel room by a deranged fan in 1949. He recovered from his wound and played six more seasons in the big leagues, starring with the 1950 "Whiz Kids" Philadelphia team that won the National League pennant.
 * Bump Bailey's fatal collision with an outfield wall was inspired by a similar (but thankfully non-fatal) accident involving talented young Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Pete Reiser.
 * Villainy-Free Villain: Max Mercy.
 * Wound That Will Not Heal