Kevin Costner To Play The Ball In Upcoming Sports Movie

Kevin Costner might be the only actor to have played both sides of the battery, first as catcher in 1988’s “Bull Durham,” and then as pitcher in 1999’s “For the Love of the Game.” However, there’s one on-field role he never dreamed of playing — that is, until director Ron Howard approached him to audition for this summer’s “Wild Pitch.” Initially, Costner thought he’d read for the part of the manager. But then Howard threw him a curve: “He said, ‘What do you think about playing the ball?’”

The veteran actor didn’t balk. He spent 11 months researching the role of Rawlings, stitching into form with help of his acting coach, the great Stanislavski-trained Binnie Falcone, who, during method-acting sessions, would launch Costner 60 feet onto a leather couch and, on several occasions, maul him with a bat.

To help him stay in character, Costner insisted the crew call him “ball” and that he be thrown to set from his trailer or else carried in a fully zipped Rawlings ball bag.

“My biggest challenge was the love scene,” admits the 66-year-old, referencing the night in which Rawlings gets trapped in an equipment bag with a catcher’s mitt, played by Helen Hunt. What follows is one of the most erotic baseball sequences ever captured on film.

Does Costner throw a shutout? Does he blow the save? Critics are split. While David Gunn of the Times calls it “the best portrayal of an inanimate object since Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III,” Paul Mink of The Guardian labels Costner’s performance “derivative” and ultimately inferior to that of Castaway’s globular sidekick Wilson.

Either way, Costner is inspiring other actors to pursue less-than-sentient roles. Dwayne Johnson is in talks with Paramount to portray a dimwitted first-down marker with eyes on the NFL, while three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is coming out of retirement to star in a soccer film about a shy cleat with a troubled past.