Baseball movie review: Sugar

November 17, 8:56 PMColorado Rockies ExaminerTravis Lay

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I generally end up doing two things in the off-season:

1. I read books on baseball
2. I watch baseball movies

Sometimes I watch movies that I have seen many times; Field of Dreams, Major League or A League of Their Own. But I also try to watch new movies that might even have a hint of baseball relevance.

I am always interested in the Negro Leagues and anything about how Latin players are developed and their story and path to the big leagues. When I saw the movie Sugar listed on Netflix and saw what it was about, I had to watch it.

This is the description from the Netflix website:

After he catches the eye of a scout while playing in his native Dominican Republic, baseball prospect Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is recruited to play in the minor leagues in the Midwest, where he has difficultly adapting both on and off the field. As much a story about the promise of the American dream as it is about America's national pastime, this film dramatizes the hard lessons learned when hope and reality clash.

Perfect.

I figured the movie would be more about the player's struggles to make it into the Major Leagues, but it ended up doing a complete 180 on me about two-thirds of the way into the movie.

If you don’t like reading while watching your movies, than this isn’t a movie for you as there are a lot of subtitles.

Miguel “Sugar” Santos ends up playing for a Single A fictional ballclub in Iowa, which happens to be where I was born. Seeing him interact with a typical small town farm family from Iowa and the language barrier was particularly interesting.

Seeing how the Latin countries view baseball as a lottery ticket to getting out of the poverty they have known for generations and how important family and friends are to the Latin players is very intriguing.

The baseball scenes are realistic, the portrayal of the baseball academies located in the Latin countries is realistic and the rigors and pressure a young player goes through on his way to achieving his dream (or in this case his families) is grabbing.  The acting was fantastic, the way the Latin players tend to get shy when they are in the United States and surrounded by a foreign language and a lifestyle totally different than anything they have ever known is captured perfectly.  The accent and mannerisms displayed by the small town population in Iowa is dead-on.

I watched the movie last night, a Monday night in which I would normally watch Monday Night Football this time of year, but with the Cleveland Browns polluting ESPN this movie was infinitely better than watching the football game.

For any baseball fan this movie is a must see. For anyone interested in Latin countries like the Dominican Republic, this is a must see.

I do not want to give the ending away, but let’s just say it isn’t your prototypical sports movie ending.

For reference, here are my top five baseball movies:

1. Field of Dreams: could be the Iowa connection
2. A League of Their Own: not only is it funny, but the historical accuracy of this movie is very good
3. Major League: who doesn’t love Pedro, or should I call him President David Palmer?
4. Sugar
5. Eight Men Out: love the Shoeless Joe Jackson story in baseball

This is not including documentaries like Baseball by Ken Burns, Where Have you Gone Joe DiMaggio, When it Was a Game series, This Old Cub or the Jackie Robinson Story: all great flicks. 

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