I wanted to bring up some of your nitpicks in a civil manner unlike how things usually go her on IMDb.
The face he makes, well I can't say anything about that. That's all preference. He's got the same smile in the American Pie movies that he's in (which I think in the main series he's in all of them).
Now, starting with the manager thing, if he was a Cubs fan like I was at his age (I was 10 when this movie came out), there are players you like because you see them more often and they, in a simple kid's eyes, are what makes the team win, not the manager. Simplistic kids thinking. If you ask me who were the Cubs managers during the 90s, I can only name 1. Other than that, I knew the players like Ryan Sandberg and Mark Grace and Sammy Sosa, but I have no idea who the managers were (it was like a revolving door since the Cubs had so many losing seasons during that decade). He seemed to know the players, but only key players, not all of them so he may have been the typical kid fan who loved the Cubs and could only name a couple players and don't know who the manager or pitching coach or hitting coaches were. Makes me wonder if he only listened to Cubs games on the radio instead of watching them on TV.
How did the Cubs win the World Series after losing their closer and one of their best pitchers?
How did the Cubs go from last place to a playoff team if they only have their closer and only one good pitcher? If their starting rotation lost every game since Henry came up, they wouldn't even sniff the playoffs. They had to have a team that improved while they had Henry on the team, they should be good enough to win the World Series. Plus we don't know who they beat. Maybe they beat the Angels the year before Joseph Gordon Levitt asked for God's help to get the Angels to the pennant. Maybe they faced the Yankees who had their 3 best hitters and their 2 best starting pitchers injured during the ALCS. It could happen. (Yeah I'm referencing Angels in the Outfield now with that quote).
Why does Henry walk the first two batters at the end and decide to pitch to the big home run threat?
Welp, judging from how vague they were with the line-up and the fact that Henry, Chet, and their manager Sal were surprised to say Hedo, I'm guessing that Hedo was a pinch hitter. Plus it makes sense because Henry was throwing a 3 inning save meaning if he goes 3-up 3-down, then that means that's 9 straight batters and the pitcher's spot is up. Put in Hedo as a pinch hitter if he's not a starter. He seems like a pinch hitter to me.
Also, he had a plan on fooling all 3 batters and was going to walk all of them. It would be very hard to fool a batter if someone is on base already (if he walked Hedo). Plus he realized, Hedo wouldn't fall for any shannigans. Plus it was his catcher who hinted what was said earlier in the movie.
He can't hit YOUR fastball.
Technically, that's a lie because Hedo hit the first pitch Henry threw at him which was a fastball and yelled
What are you kidding me? I eat fastballs for breakfast.
So his catcher must've realized that Hedo was thrown in to pinch hit against Henry because all Henry throws are fastballs and Hedo can easily crush a fastball. So the catcher realized that Henry can't throw 102+mph fastball so if Henry throws a fastball it will drop in speed a lot almost like an off-speed pitch. That's why Hedo was surprised when he swung at the first pitch. He was like WTF? Of course the 2nd pitch he swung way to early and that's why the ball went foul (although there was a goof in that scene since he hit the ball down the Left Field line and the ball went foul, but the ball actually went foul down the right field line based on where the ball went and how the Umpire signaled the foul ball). As for the Floater pitch, yeah that was a BS move (there is a real floater pitch from back in the day, but not like that), but they just wanted to tie Henry to his mother as a baseball player he could look up to.
Why does the second base runner fall for the trick after the first one did? Actually he didn't. The first one fell for the hidden ball trick (which has happened at the Major League level a few times in history, and some are on YouTube. One was talked about on
MLB.com when Harold Reynolds did it to a player. I have a feeling though that how they did the hidden ball trick in the movie was an illegal play. Don't really know.
Now the second batter who was walked didn't fall for it. He even said he wouldn't fall for the hidden ball trick. Henry did another trick to get him to try and steal a base. Now that I would call delay of game-ish, and also yeah, why would he let the kid get in his head with that chicken taunting? They could've done something different to get that guy out. Maybe he surprised the guy with a pick off throw catching him steal at 2nd base. Could've made more sense but yeah that second runner interaction was typical "it's a kids movie so we'll have kids shinannigans."
Why is Daniel Stern so annoying in this movie?Beats me. He seems to be that comic relief in every comedy he's in, but he went a bit overboard in this one. I understand he's got a brain problem after being beaned in the minors, but dial it down a notch.
Those are my two cents.
On a side note, Julie "The Cat" Gaffney, goalie for the Mighty Ducks is the love interest for Henry in this film. Hmm, I guess after being the love interest for the youngest MLB player in history, she thought she would do well as a Hockey Goalie. :D
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