In real life: Reagan dropped down to a division for smaller schools in 1999, and was coming off a 9-13 season, with the core of that team returning. Morris "reminds" his team they had only one win in each of the last three seasons. In reel life: The story hinges on a promise - if the hapless Owls "win district" and go to the state playoffs, Morris will go to a major-league tryout.
In real life, they were coming off a 9-13 season. In the movie, Quaid's high school team had won just one game in each of its previous three seasons. In real life: Morris writes in "The Rookie" that in 1999 Big Lake had 55 players try out for the team, "of whom 15 were legitimate varsity baseball players." In reel life: The Big Lake Owls baseball team has only 10 players. In real life: The Morrises have three children, including a 1-year-old.
#KEEP IT REEL NPR MOVIE#
In reel life: The 1-year-old in the movie is played by triplets. The University of Texas owned the land on which the oil was discovered, and the well has helped make the state university one of the country's richest. 1, named the "Oil Well of the Century" by Texas Monthly, was productive until 1990. 1 started a boom - more than 140 million barrels of oil came from the Big Lake oil field. On May 28, 1923, a "gusher" at Santa Rita No. In real life: Big Lake is, indeed, a town whose economy is based on oil.
In reel life: Much is made of the almost mythic importance of oil in Big Lake, with talk of the Santa Rita oil well. In real life: Morris' school does indeed have an oil pump in front. In reel life: Oil is so omnipresent in Big Lake that there's an oil pump out in front of the high school. Filmmakers probably liked the sound of "Big Lake," and might have wanted to avoid the political connotations of the name Reagan. There is no "Big Lake High School" in Texas. In real life: Morris taught at Reagan County High School, which is in Big Lake. In reel life: Morris teaches and coaches at Big Lake High School. Quaid does a fair impression of Morris' performance on the mound. In real life: Morris, circa 1999, was big and husky - 6-foot-2, 225 pounds or so - and wore a mustache flecked with gray. In reel life: Quaid is thin and clean-shaven. But Quaid gives a superb performance and is quite convincing on the mound, despite having no experience as a pitcher. Believing Quaid is 35 is a stretch - you've got to really suspend belief when you look at his face, which is as rumpled as Mick Jagger's.
In real life: Morris was 35 when most of the events depicted in the movie happened. In reel life: Morris is played by the 47-year-old Quaid. In real life: Life in the minors is rated "R." In reel life: Disney's version of life in the minors is rated "G." But in some places, as Bret Bloomquist wrote recently in Morris' hometown San Angelo Standard-Times, the movie "plays loose and easy with the truth." 'The Rookie' in reel lifeĪs you probably know, the new baseball movie "The Rookie" is "based on a true story." As the star, Dennis Quaid, has said, "What makes this (movie) great is that all of it really happened."Īctor Dennis Quaid, right, is a bit older and smaller than the real-life Jim Morris.Īnd indeed, the movie gets a lot of the important stuff right.
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