Hardball

Hardball is a 2001 American sports drama/comedy film directed by Brian Robbins and starring Keanu Reeves in the main role, Diane Lane and D. B. Sweeney. The screenplay by John Gatins is based on the book Hardball: A Season in the Projects by Daniel Coyle. The original music score is composed by Mark Isham. The film was released on September 14, 2001, topping the box office the weekend after the September 11 attacks. Plot Conor O'Neill is a gambler who secretly bets $6,000 on his dead father's account and is now severely in debt with two bookies. In order to repay the debts, he is told by a corporate friend that he must coach a baseball team of troubled African-American fifth grade kids from Chicago's ABLA housing projects in exchange for $500 each week, for ten weeks. Worried only about getting his $500 check, Conor shows up at the baseball field to a rag tag bunch of trash-talking, street-wise, inner city kids who live in the projects. Some of the players include: Andre Ray Peetes, a smart-mouthed jokester, captain of the team who knows about all the players and forms a strong bond with Conor; Kofi Evans, a troubled, angry boy who has a rivalry with Andre, a quick temper, but is the best player on the team; Jefferson Albert Tibbs, a sweet, overweight, asthmatic player; Jamal, Andre's best friend and the oldest on the team; Miles Penfield II, the brilliant pitcher who listens to The Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa to pitch well; and Jarius "G-Baby" Evans, Kofi's much younger brother who is too young to play so he becomes Conor's assistant. Conor's efforts are hindered from the onset by the fact that he does not have nine kids to make up the team. The older kids tell Conor it is because their teacher, Elizabeth "Sister" Wilkes, is making several boys finish a book report. Conor visits the teacher, but his life is threatened repeatedly by his bookies for not paying his gambling debts. He is visited by the mother of two boys and her sister's son that are allowed to play in exchange for him tutoring them.