How ‘The Natural’ Brings Me Home
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-related topics.
This essay may contain spoilers.
I don’t plan my calendar around sports. I have no idea when football season starts. Heck, I was barely aware the Winter Olympics happened. But I always know when baseball season rolls around, because that’s when it’s time to watch The Natural.
My dad and I have made a point of watching Barry Levinson’s 1984 film together every March, a tradition that has been going strong for nearly 15 years. As someone who tends to rewatch things obsessively, the fact that we only watch this once a year makes it even more special—it’s like opening a time capsule, allowing the memories from when I was 11 or 12 to remain immaculately preserved. (The one exception we made was when Robert Redford passed away. It seemed the perfect movie to remember him with.)
As I’m not a sports person, I can’t tell whether it’s an accurate depiction of the game. But to me, The Natural perfectly encapsulates what baseball is about. More than any other baseball movie, it makes me believe that what happens on the diamond is magic.
A twilight world of whimsy
It seems impossible to distill the magic of the film in this proverbial bottle of ink. I just know that despite being in school for many of the years we’ve watched it, for two and a half hours, that season of life wasn’t dictated by papers and studying for exams. It was defined by the warm sun on the grass, by lemonade in down-home cafes, by the promise of possibility. I didn’t grow up tossing a ball around or kicking up dust running the bases. But the film facilitated its own coming-of-age stories for me. As I munched what I call my dad’s “special popcorn” (which is really just popcorn with extra butter and extra salt, but somehow tastes otherworldly good), he would explain what was happening in the game—but he’d also explain things to me about the characters, and about people he knew whom those characters reminded him of. I soon began recognizing “Natural characters” in my own world as well.
The movie instilled in me a sense of whimsy: I once experimented and laid down in the middle of the (don’t worry—fairly quiet) country street in front of our house, soaking up the warm sun as I pressed my palms to the even hotter pavement. It somehow made me feel closer to the world of Roy Hobbs, to the newness of springtime and the anticipation that comes with the beginning of baseball season. (And for some strange reason, the image of lightning hitting the tree outside his house was also very vivid in those moments…)
The Natural exists in a twilight world between fantasy and reality. I’m guessing it’s not every day that a player actually knocks the cover off a ball, or creates fireworks by blowing out the stadium lights. Certain elements of the plot were loosely based on true events, but even those fall in the “stranger than fiction” category. Yet there’s also a grounded realism that makes one believe this could all really happen—or that maybe it already has, and Hobbs is still out there at this very moment, tossing a ball with his son in a golden field.
The power and promise of baseball
The Natural has all the elements of an inspirational sports movie: the team truly becoming a team, the main character’s mid-season slump, the triumphant final game. But director Barry Levinson puts a slightly different spin on the genre. I especially appreciate that it lacks the “unsupportive spouse/partner” trope that seems to be present in so many other sports flicks. Hobbs’ sweetheart (played by Glenn Close) is understanding and encouraging, and never pulls the “it’s either baseball or me” card. (In fact, Levinson uses this attribute of Close’s character to highlight a dichotomy between her goodness, and another female character’s desire for Hobbs to quit playing baseball to satisfy her own selfish ends.) Yet despite Hobbs’ desire to be “the best there ever was in this game,” the film still emphasizes the importance of family and home.
I’m sure I’m not the only one with funny little superstitions about movies. One of mine, up until fairly recently, was that I intentionally chose not to own a copy of The Natural. In keeping with the spirit of Hobbs—a bit of a wanderer in life, never revealing to people where he was from—I wanted to be able to check out a copy from the local library wherever I happened to be in March, as a sort of personal recognition that I had settled somewhere new. It wasn’t until we were in a secondhand store where I currently live that I saw a DVD, and my fear of losing access to a physical copy in the age of streaming got the better of me. I felt really guilty about that decision for a while, as though I had betrayed some key part of myself. But as I thought about it, I realized that while he didn’t mention it to those around him, Hobbs did have roots. His story is one of ambition, of doing what he loves; yet throughout his journey, his character remains deeply grounded in where he came from. That foundation becomes the guiding force that sets him back on track, returning him to the people and places that really matter. So now, wherever I go, a little piece of home, a reminder of where it all began, travels with me.
When I watch The Natural, I get it. I understand the power and promise that baseball in particular holds, both in American history and in the lives of individuals, and how our collective hopes and dreams are reflected through it. Especially as a kid, I projected all my ideas and interpretations I’d gotten from the movie onto the whole of baseball itself. But people I’ve met who talk about the game show that my feelings about it, and what The Natural says about it, aren’t far off: Baseball isn’t just about the game. It’s about everything that comes with it.
Hobbs’ story isn’t merely about baseball—it’s a whole journey wrapped in a mitt. He may be fictional, but through him, baseball brings us back to what’s important, and reminds us what the game is all about: The chance to dream, to believe in what’s possible, and to cherish the people who love us and support us. Baseball brings us all home.