Robert Redford hit a forever home run with iconic ‘Natural’ role

There are many, many reasons why 41 years later “The Natural” remains the gold standard for baseball movies (and probably for sports movies as a whole). Three are so many things to like across its 122-minute running time. 

I like that Joe Don Baker completely hams it up as The Whammer, and doesn’t even pretend like he’s anything other than a (verrrry loosely) fictionalized version of Babe Ruth. Buford Pusser has company in JDB’s personal hall of fame. 

I like that the movie was shot at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, and that the ballpark’s nickname was “The Rockpile,” a term of both affection and derision proffered by the locals. (I saw a baseball game there once. It was a dump. But it felt like you’d walked right into 1938.). 

I like Robert Duvall, even if he made a lot of people automatically despise sports columnists. If it wasn’t already taken, I might’ve actually used “Max Mercy” as my newspaper pseudonym. And it makes me wish I’d taken a stab at being a cartoonist, too.