Tribeca Review: The Zen of Bobby V

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 30, 2008

Hello baseball fans! This is a movie you’ll want to see. This ESPN produced documentary follows Bobby Valentine during his 2007 season as manager of the Japanese ball club the Marines. The film is the work of three young directors Andrew Jenks, Jonah Quickmire Pettigrew and Andrew Muscato who do a good job not only at capturing the personality of Bobby Valentine but of baseball in Japan. For anyone who roots for a team, nothing will prepare you for the devotion that the Japanese fans have for their favorite team and players.

As one man says early in the film, “I had no life until I found the Marines.” Some might suggest he still doesn’t but hey, he’s clearly enthusiastic and happy, thrilled with being a part of something that he sees as greater than himself. We see him at every game in every city. We’re never told how he quite manages to do it, but he does.

Bobby Valentine started as a player but most of his career his thirty plus year career in baseball has been spent as a coach or a manager. He spent a brief period of time in Japan as a manager, but returned to the US to manage the New York Mets in 1996. In 2000 he managed the team to a World Series against their New York rivals the Yankees. The Mets lost and by 2002 couldn’t rise above last place. Valentine was fired and returned to Japan.

His life in Japan is that of a national hero. He’s beloved and can’t walk the streets without people taking pictures, calling out his name and stopping him for a high five. There’s even a burger and a beer named after him.

No wonder he loves it there, even though it means seeing his wife every other month when she comes to visit. But he says he warned her when they got married that baseball always would come first. He wasn’t kidding. While following the Marines quest to play in the Japan Series, the film also follows Valentine’s quest to expand baseball in Japan. There’s fear that baseball in Japan will decline. Some Japanese teams have lost their following because their best players have left for the big money and challenges of Major League Baseball in the United States.

The players themselves come across as dedicated to their sport. Their devotion to their team and to their fans is intense. The fans return the feelings singing, chanting, praying for their team.
One thing that was notable, at least in the parts of the games shown in the film, was that there was no booing when a player didn’t perform up to expectations.

The film is most definitely for baseball fans and the look at baseball in Japan is fascinating. That was the big surprise of the film and what makes it enjoyable. Bobby Valentine’s an outspoken, somewhat wacky guy, intensely devoted to his sport, but a little of him goes a long way. 93 minutes of him would wear thin.It’s the look into the world of baseball and the sports fans in Japan that make the film work.

Read more articles by Robin Ruinsky