The Natural... your favorite scene(s)?

Just purchased the special edition and it's terrific. The second disc offers tremendous insight.

OK, my favorite scene: When Roy is coming off the field during a workout and is jogging behind the mound when a teammate beckons him to throw him one final BP pitch.

Watching him as he slowly climbs onto the hill, obviously recalling what a great pitcher he would have become had he not been shot, then wind up and fire, with Randy Newman's terrific score building... then the pitch is thrown so hard it rips the back of the cage, prompting the stunned look of the hitter to his equally stunned teammate standing a few feet away and then his look of amazement at Hobbs... not to mention the looks on the faces of Wilfred Bremley and Richard Farnsworth in the dugout.

Something about all of the levels of this scene just does it for me.

I had forgotten just how much I enjoy this film.

(For what it's worth, I don't think the author's ending from the book would have worked as a movie).

 

Don't forget Max Mercy watching from the stands (or was it the press box?) and suddenly realizing where he's seen Hobbs before.

 

MP: Definitely! In the director's cut, the scene with Mercy immediately after he rushes out of the ballpark is expanded, too.

 

it's a gag hobbs.

 

The walk back from the soda fountain -- the neighborhood, the period... the calmness of him going to confession.

 

Losing is a disease ...

 

Pick me out a winner Bobby
Okay. Still like Baseball Tonght's version a little better.

And how can not love the end when he hit the homer and shattered the lights. Classic.

Also when he strikes out the babe Ruth guy.

 

Max Mercy: "You're out."

The old guy in the stands motioning his hand to replicate the flight of Roy's shot in Chicago.

The Bump Baily newsreel.

Just remembering all the bums the Knights had when Roy got there, and how these sad sacks (and they really did look like a bunch of never-was players) rallied together behind him.

That ain't a ball!!!

The symbolism of the warm water coming out of the fountain, but as soon as Roy starts plastering the ball in bp the water starts to finally run cold.

Great, great movie.

 

Joe Charbonneau standing on the sidelines, not playing -- just like old times....

 

The strikeout of the Babe Ruth character, which I think was filmed in Little Valley, N.Y.

The scene where he's walking out the old Dodge Street tunnel exit at War Memorial Stadium, with his coat over his shoulder.

When Glenn Close stands at Wrigley Field and the sun halo forms around her head.

 

On the extras disc, Bob Costas proclaims Joe Don Baker's Whammer character as the best portrayal of Babe Ruth ever on film. Only one problem with that statement, in my humble opinion: Whammer hit right-handed.

Did love that scene, too, though.