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Baseball Braces for Costner-less Summer
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MILWAUKEE, WI - The baseball community was rocked when it was revealed that there would be no Kevin Costner baseball movie this summer. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight the Academy Award winning director and actor admitted that there would be no movies this summer from him in which baseball was a prevailing theme. And in what could prove even more troublesome, there appears to be no plans to make such a movie anytime in the near future.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig expressed his disappointment before Milwaukee Brewers game, "We have always felt that a Costner driven baseball vehicle was a great way to reinforce the mythical qualities that the game inspires in the American heart."
"Without the emotional impact that only Mister Costner can deliver, baseball will have a tougher time reminding people that baseball is more important to their character as Americans then just a slow, pretty boring game," continued Selig.
Costner originally showed up as an integral part in the continuing mythologizing of baseball in the midwestern paean to fathers and sons and the game they share in the pseudo-mystical drama Field of Dreams. After that Costner brought the down-to-earth hominess and quirkiness of minor league baseball to the silver screen in the comedy Bull Durham. Finally, last year Costner continued his role as Hollywood's spokesman for the National Pastime when he starred in the story of love, desire and baseball in the little watched For the Love of the Game.
Baseball has seen a dramatic rise in popularity as of late, rising out of the ashes of a disastrous strike in 1994. A baseball renaissance in the city of New York and bigger then life home run race that captured the national interest helped propel the game back to the consiousness of the American public.
But as the novelty of these wore off, New York baseball becoming too dominant to the detriment of smaller market team, home runs in over-abundance, some began to criticize it as ruining the subtleties of the game. Baseball had hoped that Kevin Costner would be able to keep the momentum going and keep baseball the mainstay of American life that it claims it needs to be.
"It is tough, but we have muddled through some tough times, drug scandals and strikes. I think we can survive a summer or two without Kevin Costner," a hopeful, but unconvincing, Selig countered.
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©2000 Copyright David Oliver
DISCLAIMER: These stories are not true. No really. It's all just a joke, you know for fun.
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