Having just finished Rick Ankiel's book, The Phenomenon, and just finishing this movie, I think it's pretty obvious the plot is based on his story. As mentioned in the FAQ, nobody has come out and said the movie is based on Ankiel but the many similarities are striking and pretty hard to ignore. Here are a few:1) Ankiel attended Port St. Lucie HS like the main character, 2) Ankiel's dad was crazy, abusive and overbearing. Ankiel even talks about him screaming at and intimidating his HS coaches. He also took credit for Rick's success, 3) Like the movie's main character, Ankiel told people his father was a fisherman and hung drywall, when in reality he was a drug dealer who spent time in prison, 4) The main character in the movie plays in the Atlanta Braves organization, which was Ankiel's favorite team growing up, 5) After he loses his control in the 2000 playoffs, Ankiel moves down to the minors and spends a ton of time with sports psychologist Harvey Dorfman, and they talk a lot about his past with an abusive father.Those are just some of the glaring similarities so it seems pretty obvious this movie was inspired by Rick Ankiel's story. As usual, artistic license has added and changed certain parts of the story but it seems pretty obvious this movie was based on Ankiel's story.I'd consider the overall production below average, in part due to the lack of character development. However, I applaud the ambition for undertaking a difficult and often unspoken aspect of professional sports. The "yips" is a well-known phenomenon in the baseball world, but one that players avoid in daily conversation because of its ability to sneak up on any player at any time, and the emotional toll it takes on its victims. Because this theme seemed to take precedence, I was willing to overlook the main character's unrealistically poor pitching mechanics and the frequent and awkward misuse of baseball terminology. It would have been nice if the movie focused a bit more on the emotional turmoil experienced in the player's personal life as he tries to overcome his affliction. This seems to be a product of the lack of character development. Additionally, I think beginning the movie with various notable events throughout the pitcher's childhood would have provided some more context, added some character development, and provided a good foundation for the rest of the movie.

I've read the reviews and no one got it. Sports are for "alpha" personalities. You can't overthink your duties in a sports game. If you do, you will doom your efforts. The father character understand this, to an extreme.The kid, our protagonist, does not. The psychologist does a little. Everything else was just a waste of time. Not only that, but you have to get an actor who looks like a 100 mph pitcher. I really like that Simmons guy, but he doesn't look like a major league pitcher. Even the father mentioned that repeatedly.Life is separated between the alphas, the betas, and the omegas. Which one are you? Having talent is not enough to make you a major league great. You have to have the mental game down as well.There was some good dialogue and some decent scenes, but much of it was disjointed. What was the point of the robbery? To show that he is a rube?Why does the girl even like him? He doesn't show any charm. Why did the mom go with the dad in high school? Was it just because he was a jock and a star, or did he show promise as a human being?This movie sucked, but had potential.

Too bad I was actually tricked in by watching this. I mean, come on, the cast of characters, the short story plot, and even the cover of the movie which pretty much tells you that this is gonna be a baseball movie. And I love baseball movies because they are feel good movies. The Natural, Moneyball, Major League, Field of Dreams. Only this is not a baseball movie.....at all. Not one game is played. Occasionally you will see the main character throw a few pitches to his coach, or his dad, but that's basically it. You see this amazing rookie pitcher make it to the big leagues, but because of a game in which he goes out of control, (Of course we never get to see this), he winds up talking to a Sports shrink. The movie is frustrating because it goes from flashback to present to flashback. It's mostly a dialogue movie with no plot. I won't go into the movie details. If you like wasting an hour and a half of your time watching a dialogue movie with no point, by all means go see it. But if you watch this because of the reasons why I watched it, don't bother, trust me you will be disappointed.

This is a slow movie so if you are looking for a baseball movie with excellent plays, this is not what you are going to get. This is pure dialog with psychological upbringing playing a major role in the protagonists head.I'll keep this short, this movie is about a good kid who is barely out of high school and has an incredible skill at pitching. He's a phenom, a boy genius with a ball in his hand.The movie is about all the pressures that a young man goes through when he has a gift even he has yet to truly understand and control. He undergoes struggling with it and begins to question his talent, his beliefs and all that he was taught about pitching. This is a movie for someone who wants to put themselves in the position of someone who is struggling to nurture what he/she naturally is talented at. The protagonist has pitchers block, many of us have a type of block in our life that we struggled to get through or failed to get through.