The player with the most hits in Major League Baseball (MLB) is Pete Rose.  Over the course of his twenty-four-year career with the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, he garnered 4,256 base hits.  Breaking that number down statistically, that equals roughly 177 per year and a lifetime batting average of .303.  Known as “Charlie Hustle,” Rose played the game the right way.  With such accolades, you would imagine that he is well remembered and honored in MLB’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  You would be wrong with such an assumption.  As manager of the Cincinnati Reds, in 1989 he was found guilty of gambling on his own team and making in-game moves to benefit his wagers.  He was handed a permanent ban from the sport.  More broadly speaking, what he did was put his personal ambitions above others, something Catholicism teaches us not to do.  You will see echoes of this in today’s film, Mr. 3000 (2004).

At the start, legendary Milwaukee first baseman Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) is one hit shy of becoming Mr. 3000.  With all the commercials we also see mixed in with him coming to bat, it is clear that he is in love with his stardom.  In other words, what is about to happen is for him and no one else, including the team and fans.  The line drive he smacks back through the middle hits the pitcher in a sensitive area.  Instead of giving him the ball, the hurler painfully tosses it into the stands.  Going into the seats, he angrily snatches the ball from a child and promptly retires.  Nine years go by and in the intervening time, he has been awaiting his call from Cooperstown.  In the meantime, he has set up a number of businesses with the eponymous trademark, joined by his friend and former teammate, Anthony “Boca” Carter (Michael Rispoli).  Though Stan has yet to obtain his ultimate goal, the Brewers decide to retire his number in the midst of a losing season in order to generate attendance.  His lack of popularity comes out when only one other member of those old clubs, save for Boca, returns, and that person does not have kind things to say in the pre-game speech.  When it is Stan’s turn to talk, he berates everyone present while also being certain of his eventual enshrinement.  Before this happens, though, MLB’s statisticians find an error in his numbers where three hits had been counted twice.  As such, he is not inducted into the hall, and his sobriquet is a sham.  Instead of giving up, Stan goes to Brewers’ president Schiembri (Chris Noth) and asks to be reinstated.  Everyone else thinks this is ridiculous, but Schiembri sees it as a money-making opportunity.  Prior to getting back on the field, though, Stan must undergo some physical training.  As a drunk patron at his bar points out, it takes more than natural ability to hit a baseball.  It is rough going at first, Stan barely able to complete one pushup, but he eventually gets going and is ready for the majors, at least in his mind.  His first time on the field in nearly a decade suggests otherwise.  He looks like a past-his-prime athlete of nearly fifty, but the spectators cheer him on regardless.  Timing is not his only issue.  None of the other members of the current roster are thrilled with the old timer’s presence, particularly the star player, Rex “T-Rex” Pennebaker (Brian White).  T-Rex is the current MLB home run leader, but it is apparent that he is in it only for himself.  Sound familiar?  It does to Stan, who in a rare moment of humility tries to give T-Rex some pointers that are rebuffed.  On the more positive side is the return of Maureen Simmons (Angela Bassett), Stan’s former flame.  She is currently working for the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), and she has been assigned to cover his comeback.  He believes they will pick up where they left off, but she is of a different opinion.  Amidst his hitless streak, he continues to beg for sex, to put it bluntly.  She keeps him at bay until one night, while trying to convince her that he is a changed man, he begins to get somewhere.  Any further nighttime maneuvers are cut short when she makes a comment about the cheapness of the act, and he claims he is no longer interested.  Here is to a brief moment of chastity, anyway.  More immediately, he realizes that nobody is taking him seriously.  As such, he turns to being more available to his teammates, doing some things to help them get some victories with the glove instead of the bat.  Then he finally gets a hit, an infield single off a broken bat.  With everyone now coming together as a unit, T-Rex makes an impassioned speech for them to go on a winning streak and climb into third place with the remaining eleven contests.  Maureen, too, returns and, well, let us just say so much for chastity.  In the following morning, it is her turn to be put off, not believing his overtures of wanting a more serious marriage.  At the stadium, Stan receives a confidence boost when he hits a walk-off homerun.  With that, he slips into his old ways.  The increased attention again has him thinking that it is all about him, and he misses an extra practice he called in order to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992-2014).  Not only does Stan let his teammates down, he stands up Maureen.  With his spirits down, he goes 0 for the final series with one more game to go.  Coming down to the last at-bat, with T-Rex on second base, and no score in the ninth inning, Stans has an opportunity to bring in the go ahead run.  Instead, seeing T-Rex about to steal, Stan lays down a sacrifice bunt and the runner races around to score.

With that, Mr. 3000 retires and lives happily ever after.  It is not the worst baseball story I have ever seen, but as a fan of the game, I feel compelled to point out the unlikeliness of that last play.  A bunt is a light tap of a pitched ball by the batter designed to slowly roll out away from the plate.  Usually, it is used to move a runner up a base, but it can sometimes result in a single.  Because nobody expects a slugger like Stan, even with diminished abilities, to attempt such a maneuver, it is difficult to call the at-bat a “sacrifice.”  However, as a Catholic, how great is it that we have a sport that has a play with such a title.  It fits metaphorically for the film because it demonstrates that Stan actually has changed.  In Faith terms, a sacrifice is not something that is ever done solely for the benefit of an individual.  Indeed, one can view the words “benefit” and “sacrifice” as antonyms.  God sees all our actions and knows the intent behind them.  For most of the movie, Stan is chasing those last three hits, and does not care how he gets them.  That is what makes his gesture at the end magnanimous.  While I do not want to get sentimental because the story is not the greatest, I was genuinely touched to see the enormity of the moment hit him while his teammates celebrated the victory.  This is one way to get to the heart of the matter, even if we cannot judge the scene as God does.  It is not as if God wants us all to defer to others in every situation.  Sometimes, we need to have the moral courage to take the lead and hit the homerun.  What also needs to be realized is that we are not bigger than any of it.

It is good to see that Mr. 3000 is the bigger man at the end, placing the needs of others before himself.  Doing so is its own reward, spiritually speaking and in the film when he is finally inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Still, that is the only noteworthy moment in the film.