Tom Hanks Thinks Daisuke Matsuzaka Is Ready for the Silver Screen

It's been quite a while since a great, or even memorable, baseball movie has arrived on the scene. I suppose mileage varies on these kinds of question but the last one that sticks out for me was 61* (I've tried to eliminate all memories of the excerable Fever Pitch), which wasn't great but was at least evocative of a particular time in baseball history. I briefly thought that There Will Be Blood would cover the 2004 ALCS but, alas, it turned out to be a milkshake of a different color.

It would seem that Tom Hanks has also noticed the lack of diamonds on celluloid. In an interview in Tokyo, Hanks said that he thought the life of Daisuke Matsuzaka would make a fine film.

"An interesting movie, I think -- one I'd want to see, if they made it -- would be the story of Dice-K. That movie would have conflict and cultural clashes and superb sports skills and sportsmanship. It would really be something in the right filmmaker's hands."

While I'd love to see a good baseball movie, I'm not sure Dice-K's story is the right one. Blessed from birth, seemingly, with a potent right arm, he dominates his way through the Japanese league before jumping to the United States for a ton of money and wins the World Series in his first season. Oh, and he does it after a multitude of other Japanese players who have made the cultural clashes something less than overwhelming.

There's not much of an arc there. I'm thinking Hanks was just throwing a bone to the local media more than he was thinking of a really great story.

There are some current players whose lives could be cinematic gold, though. Josh Hamilton comes to mind. Golden boy who turns into a drug addict, cleans up and then, finally, makes good on his promise many years later. There's a bit of The Natural to it. With the right director and star, I think that's a movie with some real potential.

Rick Ankiel's got a pretty compelling hook as well and the implications of steroid use would only add to the drama once the audience thinks everything's worked out for our hero. The story of Joba Chamberlain might play out a bit Afterschool Specialish but there's a lot more drama to it than there is in the rise and rise of Dice-K and the sordid details of Ugueth Urbina's life in Venezuela lend themselves to dramatization.

If you're looking for a more comedic bent, the Molina Brothers could star in a series of slapstick films about a clan of catchers roaming the country, looking for work behind the dish and poking each other in the eyes.

(H/T BBTF)