Fear not, Cubs fans…here’s something that will put a smile on your face! Forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but our little buddy Darwin has been in a movie!!
The movie is the 2009 “indie” sports baseball comedy Calvin Marshall, directed by Gary Lundgren and starring Steve Zahn, Diedrich Bader, Alex Frost, and none other than Darwin Barney as “Murphy,” a small role but a role nonetheless! If you already knew this…good for you! If you didn’t know this, well now you can Google it and find out more, even see a few trailers, etc.
You don’t have to wait long to see him, immediately following the title sequence is the big ‘baseball team tryout’ in which Barney gets a decent amount of camera “face time”…
Steve Zahn as ‘Coach Little’ speaking to the folks trying out for the team…the title character Calvin Marshall is seen at the lower right corner…do you see Darwin Barney?
OK, zooming in a little…and using my magic red circle, do you see him NOW?!?
The camera pans across the faces of the prospective players, here’s a closer shot of Darwin, right before the camera stops on the face of the character Calvin Marshall listening to Coach Little’s typical ‘you aren’t good enough to play on my team’ baseball movie speech…
Oh, yes…because you demand ACTION in your baseball movies, here’s a shot of Darwin Barney as “Murphy,” in the batting cage!
As far as “baseball” movies go, this one really isn’t as bad as most. Do check it out, if for no other reason than to get MORE Darwin Barney in your life!
So this movie has been out since 2009, and lots of people know about it, so why am I bringing this up now?
First reason: It’s currently on Netfilx streaming…and recently so…
This is nice because if you’re one of those whose movie-watching habits have changed at least a little bit since Netflix and the advent of their massive and ever-expanding streaming library, this means you can actually watch just enough of the movie to determine whether or not it’s worth watching the whole thing.
Let’s level-set real quick…it's the truth that most “baseball” movies are nothing but crap. The only thing that I find “good” about any handful of the plus/minus 3 sigma “baseball” movies are the cameo appearances and/or the occasional baseball pop culture references that usually appear in these movies…otherwise, they are usually nothing but junk. It’s nice when new “baseball” movies appear in my queue, because I can flip through enough scenes to find out the difference between the near-gems and the junk. This movie qualifies first because of the cameo appearance (Barney)…but, this was not meant to be a movie review, as I don’t want to start getting into reviewing movies on a baseball blog…
Second reason: It’s DRAFT DAY today…
So fire up MLB Network, enjoy a draft or two of your own, and let’s celebrate the seasonal reoccurrence of the pageant which is the potential future of professional baseball, on parade with agents and former players galore!!
…and hey…”Calvin Marshall” even has a Twitter account!!
Go CUBS!!
HAPPY DRAFT DAY!!!
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