Everyone has their pick of favorite Kevin Costner sports movies, but perhaps one that doesn’t get as much love as the others is For Love of the Game. Costner, as Billy Chapel, is a 40-year-old accomplished pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, who’s on his last stand and throws one of the more unlikelier perfect games in MLB history.
Well, you know, in the movie.
In a recent interview with GQ, Costner stated that the famed movie, which took place in large parts at Yankee Stadium, almost didn’t happen at “The House that Ruth Built.”
“The movie wasn’t going to happen in Yankee Stadium, and we already had a crew out there,” Costner explained. “And no one knew what to do about it, but George (Steinbrenner) wasn’t gonna let it happen. It wasn’t fair.
“And it came down to I didn’t have a lawyer, no studio executive. Our movie was dead in the water. And somebody said, ‘Kevin, you need to talk to him.’ And I was like, ‘Where’re all the tough guys? Everybody, what are you talking about? I have to talk to George?’ But he had said, ‘No, it wasn’t gonna happen.’ We had a contract.
“I call up George. He’s a legendary guy, a difficult guy. And I wasn’t certain how I was gonna go about doing that, but so much was riding on it. And so I called him up, and I said, ‘Hello, George,’ and he goes, ‘Hello, Kev.’ And I said, ‘Hi, George.’ He goes, ‘What, do you need Kev?’ And I said, ‘Well, George, it sounds like we can’t come to Yankee Stadium,’ and he said, ‘That’s right.’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Where’s my dad? I need somebody to help me with this. I don’t know what to say to this guy.'”
Costner says he told Steinbrenner they had a contract, and while the Yankees owner acknowledged that, he also said he couldn’t let it happen. All Costner wanted was an explanation, and Steinbrenner was unhappy that the Yankees were going to lose in the movie, and he couldn’t let that happen.
“I said, ‘George, it’s a perfect game. I pitch a perfect game. You don’t even get a hit. Yes, you lose,'” Costner recalls telling Steinbrenner. “‘Yeah, the Yankees can’t lose.’ And I thought, ‘Well, we’ve just lost the stadium because I’m not gonna change the plot.’ So, I listened to him, and there’s a little bit of silence, and I finally said, and I use different words than I’m gonna use with you. I said, ‘George, what are you talking about?’ You can guess what I filled in.”
Costner told Steinbrenner that, actually, the Yankees don’t lose in the movie — they win.
“Now, I’m really lying right here right now ’cause they do lose,” Costner continued. “I kick their a** with the perfect game.”
That’s when Costner told Steinbrenner that the Yankees win the pennant in his movie world. They don’t need this game, so much so that they even bring up minor leaguers. In the movie, at 63–97, Chapel’s (Costner) Tigers have long since been eliminated from playoff contention and are playing for nothing but pride against the Yankees. But funnily enough—which he probably didn’t let Steinbrenner in on—they would have a chance to clinch the American League East with a win.
Costner says he was being a “world-class liar,” buttering Steinbrenner up with the Yankees going on to win the World Series in his story. And the 1999 Yankees would sweep the Atlanta Braves for their consecutive title, third in four years and 25th overall.
“Turns out they did; they won that year,” Costner said.
Costner describes his parents’ unwavering support throughout his life. They attended every Little League game and even followed him to the remote filming location of Dances with Wolves. There, his parents parked their Winnebago on a mountaintop, where his mother would cheerfully wave at him every morning from her lawn chair. Despite the unusual workspace, Costner would head out to direct the movie, exchanging waves with his mom before tackling the day’s filming.
“My whole life was Little League for my parents,” he explains. “And so, For Love of the Game, they were in the stands and watched me shoot that movie.”
Costner did three baseball movies. He thought he was done after shooting cult classics like Field of Dreams and Bull Durham. Then, he read For Love of the Game, and when Costner senses something and feels like he can connect with an audience, he doesn’t want to let it pass him by.
And he didn’t let a little quibble with Steinbrenner pass the movie by either.
[GQ]
