Gift of the Game
October 2005 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Major League Baseball isn't what it used to be. It's flush with multimillionaires whose on- and off-field escapades often overshadow the inherent beauty of the game they play. It has taken a high, tight fastball on the chin this summer in the form of a steroids scandal that threatens to undermine the credibility of many careers and records. Small-market teams can't compete for high-priced free agents, so people in Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee support teams with no realistic chance of making the playoffs. Kids primp and preen like the players they see on ESPN, and this tainted a dramatic Little League World Series, in which a team from Hawaii came from behind in the last inning to win the championship.

In stark contrast to all of this is the spirit of Gift of the Game. Novelist Randy Wayne White and a baseball team that includes former Major League pitchers Jon Warden and Bill "Spaceman" Lee travel to Cuba to research a baseball league that Ernest Hemingway started in 1940 and the team he coached, the Gigi Stars, named after Hemingway's youngest son. Along the way White recalls an earlier visit to Cuba during the exodus of the late 1970s, and he divulges plans to restart the league, only to have Cuban bureaucracy thwart him. The visitors play baseball like boys and tap into the Cuban people's passion for the game, which kids play all year round, often on makeshift diamonds with homemade equipment.

The movie's best scenes take place with the people White and his entourage track down, such as the men who, when boys, played catch with Papa Hemingway and "The Man with a Hundred Moves," a legendary Cuban pitcher who had a seemingly endless number of creative windups. Amidst a society crumbling from poverty and neglect, the Cuban people maintain a resilience that the movie conveys along with an ample amount of the visitors' beer-league good humor. White and the former Major Leaguers give away new bats, balls, gloves and hats they've stowed, and receive a dose of Cuban enthusiasm for baseball in return.

The DVD's picture is bright and clear, if a little overly crisp in spots, and the stereo sound is right for the subject matter. Unfortunately, there are no extra materials, and this DVD is prime for them.

If you love baseball but hate what it has become on the professional level, Gift of the Game will remind you of all that's good about the game.

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