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While everyone's been following the on-again, off-again, on-again twists and turns surrounding the attempt to make Moneyball into a motion picture, another baseball movie based on a book has quietly been filling out it's lineup card. Three Nights in August, the book about noted Twitter-hater Tony La Russa by noted blog-hater and author Buzz Bissinger is moving toward the silver screen with the help of a veteran of another big-screen baseball picutre. Billy Bob Thornton, from the wholly unneccesary remake of The Bad News Bears, has signed on to produce the big-screen version of Bissinger's tome about a 2003 series between La Russa's Cardinals and the Cubs.
Thornton and Bissinger have a decent joint track record thanks to the solid film adaptation of Friday Night Lights. It didn't reach the heights of either the book or the television versions, but it was two hours well spent in the cineplex all the same. That's a positive for the film's chances, although I wonder how well the narrative of the book will hold up to the big-screen treatment.
That's not to say that Three Nights in August wasn't a good book, because it was an interesting look at the way La Russa operates as a manager, as well as the way a manager interacts with his millionaire charges. The problem is that most of that stuff takes a lot of backstory to develop while the three games themselves are rather ordinary midsummer affairs that don't really have a cinematic quality.
Unless watching the manager character change pitchers three times in one inning because the opposition has a righty-lefty-righty triumverate in the middle of their lineup, that is.
It might be more interesting to create a miniseries about the project, even if it expanded out from the original book's setting and/or premise. That gives more time to develop La Russa's character, as well as frame his relationships with players like J.D. Drew and Albert Pujols. But I'm the same guy who thought Rookie of the Year wouldn't work because the premise was too ridiculous, and thank the heavens I was wrong, do with my advice what you will.
Thornton may appear in the film, although he won't be playing La Russa. He'd make an interesting choice as Lou Piniella, though, or Sammy Sosa, for that matter. Who should play La Russa? I'll throw Zach Galifianakis, mostly because "The Hangover" has been the best thing in theaters this summer and he was the major reason why. Feel free to leave your own casting thoughts in the comments.
(H/T Deadspin)
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