THE HILL
May 2, 2024
Today we are going to play a game. At least, I am. And that game is called What, Exactly, Is True? It's a game we play when a movie "Based on a true story". Or sometimes "Inspired by actual events". In other words, you can't ever play this game with a Star Wars movie or a Seth Rogen movie.
"The Hill" is a God movie, a baseball movie and a period piece. It's a great story! So let's run down the story, plot point by plot point, and assign YES or NO to each plot point, guessing whether or not that point actually ever happened. Then I'll Google this movie and see how much of it I got right! Here we go:
A kid is playing baseball - YES
His dad - played by Dennis Quaid, who is looking a lot like Tommy Lee Jones somehow - is a preacher - YES
The kid wears leg braces like Forrest Gump - YES
The kid can hit rocks a long, long way - YES
The kid - whose name is Ricky Hill and will henceforth be called Ricky - has a girlfriend that critiques his swing - NO
Quaid loses his preacher job because he asks people not to smoke or chew tobacco in his church - NO (but should be a YES any and every time!)
Booted from their shack and going who knows where, the Family Truckster breaks down, has a flat, and strands the family in Nowhere, Texas - NO
A kindly rich lady picks them up and it turns out her husband's brother's small town needs a preacher - YES
Now in their new, smaller town, Ricky and his brother try to get into a baseball pickup game - NO
Rebuffed because of his Forrest Gump leg braces, Ricky challenges the best pitcher to strike him out - NO
Ricky misses on two swings but bangs his knees with the bat so that they'll bend - YES
Now with bendable legs, Ricky hits a home run - YES
And now without braces, on account of them getting ruined by a bat, Ricky can walk - YES
Ricky grows up to be a high school baseball phenom - YES
At the end of the season, Ricky trips on a sprinkler while chasing a fly ball and rips all the tendons in his ankle - YES
Upon examination, the doctor says that not only does Ricky have an almost-unfixable ankle, he has a spinal condition - YES
Ricky's family can't afford the operation but somehow, the small town raises the $7,000 needed - NO
The operation is a success - YES
But it turns out that two months after the operation, there's a major-league tryout in Ricky's little town - NO
Ricky's first girlfriend shows back up, and has brought a newspaper reporter from Houston with her - NO
Ricky breaks his cast off his ankle so as to make it to the tryout - NO
The tryout is attended by major league scouts, including the guy who signed Nolan Ryan, Red Something-Or-Other - YES
Ricky hits very well but can't run or field, since he's still limping very badly - YES
Ricky gets cut but convinces the scout to give him one more at-bat - NO
Ricky hits every pitch out of the stadium, and they land in the next stadium over, right next to Red - NO
Red tells Ricky he can be a DH (designated hitter) for both teams in the Big Game the next day - YES
Ricky's dad has never ever seen Ricky play baseball, as he hates anything that isn't preaching - NO
The childhood girlfriend and all of Ricky's family except Dad show up for the Big Game - NO
Ricky goes 10-for-10, absolutely killing all pitchers - YES
For his last at-bat, Red calls out an All Star major league pitcher who's in the minors for a rehab stint - NO
The pitcher gets two strikes on Ricky and then plunks him hard in the ribs - NO
Ricky is told to take his base but says that since this isn't a real game, he's going to finish the at-bat - NO
Ricky's dad shows up at this exact moment, walking through a gate and standing right next to third base - NO
On the next pitch, Ricky creams a home run - NO
The rest of the story is what happened to Ricky Hill in real-life. He was drafted by the Montreal Expos, played four years in the minor leagues, and then had spinal trouble, forcing his retirement. He now lives in Fort Worth, Texas where he is a golf instructor and coaches Little League.
Alright, let's go to the Google machine and check our results!
<Googling, Reading, Taking a Break>
Not bad! I think the only thing I got wrong was that in fact, his dad really never did get to see Rickey (and that's how it's spelled) play. But Dad did support Rickey's baseball efforts, unlike Dennis Quaid in the film. This movie very much does track the real story of Rickey Hill.
But man! As usual, there are a couple things not in the movie that should have been. For instance, Rickey didn't bomb the legendary scout Red Murff (and that's his last name) with home runs - instead, Rickey climbed a 10-foot fence in order to get to Murff and convince Murff to let him hit. Murff was standing on the pitcher's mound. Murff asked Rickey, "Do you know where you are? You're on the hill" and that's how the story got its name. But I don't think that line was in the movie.
I'm not 100% sure on the sprinkler point. But I did find out that in real life, Rickey ran through an outfield wall while chasing a fly ball and broke 38 bones. Thirty-eight! I have no idea why the film makers thought showing a guy trip on a sprinkler head was more visually attractive than showing a guy run through a wall.
Another real-life thing about Rickey was that he was only in the Expos system one year but his minor league roommate was Andre Dawson, who is in the Hall of Fame. Rickey and Andre are still friends. And Rickey remained friends with Red Murff the rest of Murff's life, even speaking at Murff's memorial service.
One of the independent minor league teams Hilll played on won their league championship and somehow everyone got a championship ring but Rickey. However, in an incredible stroke of luck, a reporter was contacted by a guy who said he had Rickey's ring. It had Rickey's name inscribed on it. The guy got it from his father but didn't know how his father had got it. The reporter was able to put everyone together and 37 years after the fact, Rickey got his ring.
The more I type this review, the more I like this movie. And the more I like all the stuff AROUND the movie. I'm giving "The Hill" 4 Rusted Out 1971 Mustang Mach 1s out of 5 Rusted Out 1971 Mustang Mach 1s. And I'll leave you with this, which is a mammoth home run that landed on the porch of a house. The same guy - Dave Kingman - once hit a ball out of the Cincinnati Reds' stadium and into the river, which was the border between Ohio and Kentucky. That means Kingman hit a ball from one state to another!
(By the way, Kingman hits 3 home runs in this game but the Cubs lost 23 22!)
