The Scout (1994)

The story of a baseball scout who discovers a talented but troubled baseball player.

Director:

Michael Ritchie

Writers:

Roger Angell (article), Andrew Bergman (screenplay)

Stars:

Albert Brooks, Brendan Fraser, Dianne Wiest

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Albert Brooks	...	Al Percolo
Brendan Fraser	...	Steve Nebraska
Dianne Wiest	...	Doctor H. Aaron
Anne Twomey	...	Jennifer
Lane Smith	...	Ron Wilson
Michael Rapaport	...	Tommy Lacy
Barry Shabaka Henley	...	McDermott
John Capodice	...	Caruso
Art Garfield	...	Stan (as Garfield!)
Louis Giovannetti	...	World Series Catcher
Stephen Demek	...	Yankee Catcher
Ralph Drischell	...	Charlie
Brett Rickaby	...	George's Assistant
Jack Rader	...	Mr. Lacy
Marcia Rodd	...	Mrs. Lacy

Storyline

Al Percolo is a major league baseball scout sent to scout in Mexico as a punishment. However, he eventually stumbles across Steve Nebraska, a young American who can pitch AND hit better than anyone else can do either. He signs Steve and returns home in glory. It soon becomes obvious, though, that Steve is immature and possibly unstable, and Al turns to psychiatrist Doctor H. Aaron, whom he picks for her name, for help.

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Plot Keywords:

vomiting | major league baseball | airport | new york city | father son relationship | 

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Taglines:

If you pray hard enough for a miracle... miracles can really happen!

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Sport

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for a moment of strong language

Details

Country:

USA Mexico

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 September 1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

Az emberkereskedő

Filming Locations:

Mexico

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,458,837, 2 October 1994

Gross USA:

$2,694,234

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,694,234

Company Credits

Production Co:

Santo Domingo Film & Music Video, Twentieth Century Fox

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film had a long development history. Peter Falk was cast as Al Percolo in 1983. In 1989, Rodney Dangerfield was attached to play Al with Sam Kinison attached to play Steve Nebraska.

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Goofs

While it is unlikely the Cardinals would have batted Ozzie Smith 9th, it is not impossible. Smith batted 9th in every World Series game in an AL park in 1982, and batted 8th in the National League in 11 games in 1994. Had there been a DH in those games, Smith would have hit 9th. In his career, Smith hit 8th more than 1,700 times.

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Quotes

Steve Nebraska: [when asked his opinion of the pictures being shown Steve replies] It's Batman!
Doctor H. Aaron: Batman?
Steve Nebraska: Sometimes he goes without his cape.

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Connections

Features Damn Yankees (1958)

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Soundtracks

I Left My Heart in San Francisco
Written by Douglass Cross and George Cory

User Reviews

This movie could have been very good.

The Scout is one of those sports movies that gets it right in enough ways to make it watchable, but gets it wrong enough to make you cringe in more spots than you'd like. Brendan Fraser is really terrific as the dopey, wide-eyed innocent of a pitcher who becomes the subject of a massive game of tug of war at first between teams to see who signs him, and then between his love of baseball and his fear of failure. His career has flourished thanks to roles like this, the downy innocent amid a swamp of leaches. This part of the movie is really good. The huge, over-exaggerated bidding war between baseball clubs for his service, it all is real enough to be familiar, and satirical enough to really make fun of and kind of predict baseball's current situation, in which money has become more and more the driving force behind the game. The movie also has a bevvie of terrific cameos like Bret Saberhagen, Keith Hernandez, who oddly seem mistcast as Mets stars in a movie that circles around the Yankees, and of course, a small but prominant role for Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. But in the end all of this winds into a ridiculous debut outing in the first game of the World Series. Let's start with the fact that you can't just join the roster in the World Series. It doesn't work that way. No matter how touted you are, no team will carry a pitcher on their post-season roster (and no, if you're not on that roster the whole way, you cannot join it) who won't pitch unless you get the Series. It doesn't work that way. And his 81 pitch, 81 strike perfect game is ludicrous. I mean completely preposterous. This is a movie that gets so much right in its satire of the game's economics (the Yankees winning the bidding war here is a nice little nod to the current situation where the Yankees are hated throughout the baseball world for their tossing around of money as if it were the fake paper stuff you get with a Monopoly board) and gets so much wrong in the baseball sense. In how good Steve Nebraska (Fraser) is, all sense of realism is throw horribly out the window, and the movie becomes little more than a silly baseball movie. As a Yankee fan, and a fan of the game itself, i expect better of a baseball movie.