Baseball is a 1992 American sports comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi, starring Tom Selleck, Ken Takakura, Dennis Haysbert, and Aya Takanashi.

[1] Jack Elliot is an aging American baseball player unsuspectingly put on the trading block during Spring Training in 1992 by the New York Yankees in favor of "rookie phenom" first baseman Ricky Davis, and there's only one taker: the Nagoya Chunichi Dragons of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.

He believes the rules and management style of his new skipper, Uchiyama, are ludicrous, and continues to do things his way, which leads his already dwindling performance to suffer even more.

In a rare show of humility, he apologizes to the team in Japanese, erroneously saying he wants to build a "chopstick" (箸, hashi) rather than a "bridge" (橋, hashi) of friendship (the words are homophones but stressed differently) and the team rallies around him and teaches him the value of sportsmanship and respect for hard work.

The reinvigorated Elliot's enthusiasm for team play is contagious and the mediocre Dragons become contenders for the Central League pennant.

In the process, he also utilizes a Japanese tradition of being able to tell off Uchiyama while intoxicated to convince him to encourage his players to be more aggressive and "have a little fun."

Eventually, Elliot gets the opportunity to break Uchiyama's record of seven consecutive games with a home run, but not before his positive response to a call from his American agent complicates his relationship with Hiroko.

With the Dragons winning the pennant, Uchiyama can keep his job and Max ends his five-year career in NPB by signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

[2] The first story treatment was drafted by Theo Pelletier, a writer with no previous film credits to his name, and developed into a screenplay by Monte Merrick and Gary Ross.

When Schepisi came onto the project, Tom Selleck had already been cast as the lead, and because of an unusual clause in his contract, had final say over the approval of the script.

Universal was concerned about issues of cultural sensitivity in the depiction of Japanese characters, so they recruited John Junkerman, an experienced writer and director of films about Japan, to rework the story.

After returning from Japan, Schepisi and Solomon rewrote the entire script, highlighting cultural clashes between the characters for comic effect, but this version in turn was rewritten by Kevin Wade to accommodate Tom Selleck.

Since Wade's contract expired mid-way through production, however, he only worked on it for about three weeks, leaving many loose ends that eventually had to be sorted out by Schepisi.

Thousands of local extras volunteered to sit in the stands during the filming of game situations, even braving a typhoon to cheer on the fictionalized Dragons during their climactic showdown with the Yomiuri Giants.

The scenes at Jack Elliot's suite apartment were filmed at the Tsukimi-ga-oka Mansion complex in Kakuozan, a thirty-minute subway and local train ride from the stadium.

[5] Scenes of Jack and Hiroko's visit to local shrines were filmed at the Ōsu Kannon marketplace, near the heart of the city's commercial district.

Sequentially, the scenes at Ōsu begin with Jack praying and clanging the bell at Fuji Sengen Shrine, before moving to Banshō-ji to offer incense.

A scene in which Jack meets a group of other expatriate American ballplayers at a foreigners' bar was filmed in Sakae, on the site of the current Shooter's.

Oddly, the insignia on the Dragons cap is changed in the American theatrical release poster, emblazoned instead with a more angular "D" topped by a macron.

The scene in which Elliot taunts an opposing pitcher who refuses to throw him a strike by gripping the bat upside down was apparently based on a real-life incident.

Western player Randy Bass, playing for the Hanshin Tigers who was challenging Japan's single-season home run record in 1985, also tauntingly turned his bat around in protest.

Brad Lesley, another former American expat baseball player, has a small role in the film, as Alan Niven—playing a slugger rather than his natural position of relief pitcher.

The trailer, which runs two minutes and fourteen seconds, features dialogue and scenes that are absent from the final version of the film.

[citation needed] Janet Maslin of The New York Times singled out Selleck's performance for praise, writing, "The character of Jack, whose being sent to Japan is the impetus for Mr.

Since 2011, an American fan dressed as Jack Elliot has garnered media attention for his enthusiastic support of the Chunichi Dragons, especially their minor-league affiliate, which plays in the old Nagoya Stadium — the setting of the film.