With baseball season nearly over (as the World Series builds to a climax), I thought it might be an apt time to review the 2008 film "Sugar" - co-written and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. The film follows the early adult life of a young Dominican pitcher nicknamed Sugar (Algenis Perez Soto) through is trials and tribulations of the minor league baseball system.
Born in poverty in the Dominican Republic, but with a natural arm for pitching, Sugar is part of a major league development club and, after mastering a "spiked curve" pitch, makes his way into the American minor league system, where his family hopes he can make money to support them. In the US, he is suddenly immersed in a culture beyond his comprehension and ability to adapt. Unfortunately, this is where Sugar's life begins to take a downward turn. In the Dominican, his talents were something special, but in the US he is just one of hundreds of talented players who are trying to make their way to the top. His career stalls, and when another young Dominican pitcher takes his place in the team's rotation, he sees the writing on the wall and runs away to New York before he can be deported. In New York, he struggles to survive, but meets a carpenter who "adopts" him and helps him to adjust to the life he had never planned for. At the very end, we see Sugar playing contently on a Sunday league team.
What was most surprising for me was how much this movie was simultaneously both about baseball (and the player development system) while also being about a single individual within that system. It was quite a shock when he abandons the team two-thirds of the way into the movie, and the baseball premise becomes merely a background to the character. The film was generally heartwarming, and, at many times, felt more like a documentary than a movie.
The core theme of the movie, to me at least, was the unfairness of a sports development system in which people - real people with hopes and dreams and talent - are treated as though they are commodities to be bought, sold, traded, and let go without conscience. Most American boys - boys around the world, in fact - grow up admiring Major League ballplayers. Imitating their swings, trying to field the positions, dreaming of winning the World Series. Yet, too often left in the background, is the flood of ball players who were left behind in the development process. Players whose physical or mental abilities may have wavered at the wrong moment and were not given a second chance.
The final sequence of the movie, I feel, hammers this point home. The audience sees Sugar playing for a local Sunday league team through a chain-link fence. He is smiling and joking around with the other players, although their words are not translated. Suddenly, the soundtrack goes silent and we see Sugar stare off into the distance, and his face goes from smiling to one of solemn reflection. Finally, the camera re-focuses to the fence in the foreground, leaving Sugar a blur in the background for a few seconds - and then the screen goes black.
That last shot gave me major pause. It symbolized that these players, especially the foreign born players raised in poverty, are often left muted on the other side of the fence. Nobody sees (or perhaps cares) about their plight. It rarely comes up in salary negotiations (such as those by Manny Ramirez last winter), how much money will trickle down to those who, by some single stroke of bad luck, may never get the chance to ask for millions of dollars. These players never become part of our collective conscious, and because they are not necessarily citizens, are not given the labor protections granted to others. The massive Yankee and Dodger Stadiums, and Wrigley Fields and Fenway Parks, are built upon the sweat, blood, and aching muscles of thousands of players who hope for one chance to take an at-bat and build a career.
Overall, "Sugar" was an outstanding movie, and I highly recommend it. Just don't expect it to be an uplifting film about the one player who gets the big hit in the final game. It's about the thousands of players who just hope for that chance to make their mark.
