The ball happened to be the one hit by San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds for his record-setting 73rd home run at the end of the 2001 MLB season. When the ball landed in the right-field bleachers at what was then Pac Bell Park (San Francisco), there was a mad scramble for the precious ball, bodies piled up on the walkway above McCovey Cove. Patrick Hayashi, who stood quietly with a sheepish grin on his face as the scrum continued, eventually held the historic ball up for a TV camera to reveal that he had possession of it. MLB and Giants security grabbed Mr. Hayashi and escorted him down to the bowels of the ballpark and authenticated his baseball as the true #73.
Tripp Spence (Harry Connick, Jr.) is a widowed Maryland-based lawyer who becomes the focus of an intensive IRS investigation regarding false bankruptcy claims he filed during his wife's fatal illness. Realizing his case against the inevitable criminal charges is hopeless, he takes his 13-year-old son Derrick (Shawn Salinas), who loves playing Little League baseball and is competing in his final year of eligibility due to age restrictions, and flees from the investigation, moving out west to Las Vegas, Nevada. Through a corporate connection, Tripp acquires new identities for the two of them, with Tripp becoming Glen Simon Ryan and Derrick becoming Michael "Mickey" Jacob Ryan, whose fictional backstory is that they recently moved into town from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The movie documents the 2003 season of the Boston Red Sox, beginning with their annual spring training and culminating at the American League Championship Series. The documentary also looks into the team's fandom, as well as the team's interactions with their fans.
Despite having dated a number of women, professional baseball player Dong Chi-sung has never had a first love. "I always think it's love, but sooner or later I find out it's not..." Sure enough, his latest girlfriend dumps him, and then on the same day, he goes to the doctor and finds out he has a malignant tumor, with only three months to live. It's September now, so he won't even live to see the new year. With his mind in a tailspin, he goes to a friend's bar to drink away his pain.
It's every high school baseball team's dream to go to the legendary Koshien Stadium Tournament. For the first time in years, Seido High School has a chance—star player Gorrila Matsui has finally given the team an opportunity to succeed. Most delighted at this prospect is Principal Kocho. His hopes are dashed, however, when the Head teacher reveals to him that the first game will be played against the infamous Gedo High School.
A young baseball player faces the tragic circumstances of the internment of 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Set in a relocation camp in 1943, Day of Independence chronicles a family torn apart by a forced, unjust incarceration, a father's decision that challenges his son, and ultimately his son's triumph through courage, sacrifice and the All-American game of baseball.
Eddie Ogden is a 14-year-old at Cedar Valley High School, playing baseball for the Groundhogs, coached by his father. His father wants Eddie to win a scholarship for his baseball skills. Eddie likes baseball, but in his spare time, he watches The Food Network (specifically Bobby Flay). Eddie enjoys cooking for him and his friends.
Josh is off to his first year of college and Buddy has stayed behind with Josh's little sister, Andrea, and the rest of the family. Andrea, attempting to fit in with her junior high classmates, Andrea decides to join the baseball team and along the way discovers that Buddy also has the uncanny ability to play baseball. Just as the season is settling in, a terrible discovery is made - Buddy's puppies have mysteriously started disappearing with the help of the kidnappers' little helper, Rocky Raccoon. It turns out the kidnappers were researchers who were kidnapping the puppies because they thought they had a special gene that would enable them to play sports. Buddy must find them and make it to the major leagues as he goes to bat for the Anaheim Angels.
The film tells the story of Jim Morris, the son of a career Navy man, who moves the family to a small Texas town. Jim is shown to be a very skilled pitcher as a youth, though his father disapproves of Jim's dream of making it to Major League Baseball. It is later mentioned that the town to which Jim's family moved, Big Lake, has never cared for baseball. Thus, he was unable to play baseball in high school. He later gets a chance when he is drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers, but he tears up his shoulder, ending his hopes of achieving his lifelong dream.
In 1998, the family of the late Roger Maris goes to Busch Stadium to witness Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals break their father's record with a 62nd home run. Maris' widow, Pat, is hospitalized due to complications from arrhythmia and watches the game on television from a hospital bed.
Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) is a gambler who secretly bets $6,000 on his (dead) father's account and is now severely in debt with two bookies. In order to repay the debts, he is told by a corporate friend that he must coach a baseball team of troubled fifth grade kids from Chicago's ABLA housing projects in exchange for $500 each week, for ten weeks.
Ryan Dunne is a local baseball prospect who gets an opportunity to play in the Cape Cod Baseball League for the Chatham Athletics. Dunne was born and raised in Chatham, Massachusetts and dreams of playing in the major leagues. He helps his dad with his landscaping business and takes care of Veteran's Field, where the Chatham A's play.