About Natural

Post 139:

            Thank the good Lord, the Majors are throwing off the walking-through-concrete pace of the pre-season and starting on the real. I’m going to see my beloved Rangers play (in Texas) tomorrow. It’s warm. There’s hope. Another season. All those things that you feel if you’re into feelings.

            I caught a little of The Natural last night whilst flipping. They’re throwing up a ton of baseball stuff to get people in the mood. Makes sense. Anyway, I decided I hadn’t seen the Redford classic for at least a year, so I let it run.

            For the first time, the irony of the movie occurred to me. It’s really a tale of the supernatural. It’s not clamoring you over the head, so I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but the effect is the same.

            He’s got this bat made from lightning-infused wood, the very tree under which his father died. Whoa. That’s some mystical, supernatural, fairy-tale stuff. Love it. Then there’s the diabolical woman who is so ephemeral and dark she’s almost straight out of a mystic tale of religious warning. A furtive fallen angel. She snuffs out the young man on his epic quest, but alas, he’s not done.

            We’re not told too much, and we get to experience a little of what the people in the movie are experiencing. We know enough of the backstory to be interested, but the music, the emotion, the things we don’t know keep nipping at us. This is deft storytelling. How can it be that this nobody from nowhere is doing things that nobody from anywhere has ever seen? It’s beyond understanding, it defies logic and all reason. It’s so supernatural, there’s only one thing you can say about the guy.

            He’s a natural. See you after.