Although many people probably forgot about it between College Football and September MLB action, on Saturday night HBO aired “Ferrell Takes The Field”, the documentary/comedy special on Will Ferrell’s quest to play for ten teams at ten positions during spring training as a way of raising awareness and money for charity and to honor Bert “Campy” Campaneris, the first player to play all nine positions in one MLB game.
While the special was far from perfect and at times is edited in a way where it deviates slightly from reality, it is definitely worth a watch and has some hilarious moments, especially at the end, where a callback to an earlier bit provoked a reaction so great I almost hurt from laughing so hard.
The film starts off nicely (after a brief title sequence where Will Ferrell plays baseball against himself) by showcasing what he was doing this for, by showcasing how his friend, a ballplayer at USC, had seen his career end because of cancer, and how that friend has since tried to make a difference by offering scholarships to young cancer survivors who otherwise would not have been able to afford to go to college. I was glad that they got this in so early in the documentary, as it was a good way to prove that this was not just Ferrell goofing around, but rather Ferrell goofing around for a good cause.
After that and a clip-show of people saying he was nuts/disrespectful/out-of-his-league/whatever, the documentary enters the actual day itself. It’s pretty standard, as Ferrell goes from stadium to stadium, position to position, team to team. Along the way, Ferrell narrates weird and wacky thoughts, observations, jokes, etc. Sometimes they are funny, sometimes they are not. And then there are a few that are downright hilarious.
For example, arguably the best bit of the entire film comes when Billy Beane, after Ferrell’s stint at shortstop with the Athletics, tells Ferrell he’s been traded. Ferrell, of course, doesn’t take the news well, and intercut with his reaction to Beane in the Athletics dugout is a (presumably facetious) long monologue by Ferrell about how Billy Beane is a blood-sucking liar who loves his numbers so much that he doesn’t care about heart or guts at all and doesn’t realize that players are people, and that presumably anytime you go visit him he’s watching “Moneyball”, which he probably likes to namedrop and watch with everybody he meets, since it’s about him. My description of this bit does not do it justice, and it gets a great callback at the end.
Sadly, nothing quite matches that conversation with Beane, although there are certainly funny moments, especially in the juxtaposition between how Ferrell (or at least the parody of himself he is playing) imagines events and how they actually occur and in the occasional interactions with actual players (such as Ferrell taking Mike Trout’s hat and glove, with Trout telling him to make sure he gives them back). How much you laugh, of course, will depend on your sense of humor, but it’s hard to not at least smile at the sheer wackiness of it all.
However, there are a few bones I have to pick with the documentary. For one thing, they completely omit Ferrell’s first at-bat of the day, when Joe Maddon had him hit for the Cubs. I feel like anytime you have the chance to have Joe Maddon on camera, you should take it. In addition, I feel like how exactly Ferrell was able to convince MLB to let him do this would have been interesting to know too, and probably funny as well.
Still, there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour than watching “Ferrell Takes The Field”, so watch it if you can.
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LINKS!
“The Red Sox World Series That Almost Wasn’t”
“Around The World With The Minor League Home Run King”
Jason Feifer on the Frontier Greys, the Indy-League team that has no home stadium and plays all games on the road
A little old, but here’s a story from Tim Casey at Vice Sports on Sean Burroughs, still chasing the dream
SELF-PROMOTION OF THE WEEK: How many sports has Mario played in video games? And the best unofficial baseball POSTERS online.
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See you next week!
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