It isn't just sped-up softball, nor is it miniature baseball. Fastpitch is a thrilling, fast-moving sport in its own right, a game that once rivaled baseball as the great American pastime. And if the playing field is a little on the small side, it only means the pitcher's circle is that much closer to the batter's box, and that the ball whizzes over the plate a whole lot faster.

Filmmaker Jeremy Spear came to fastpitch softball in a roundabout way: After 10 years spent toiling in the New York City art world as a painter and sculptor, the 35-year-old Yale grad decided to pursue his adolescent dream of playing ball and landed a spot as shortstop for the New Jersey Gators, a well-known fastpitch softball team. But when his coach decided to pinch-hit for him, Spear let himself be recruited by the hardscrabble Ashland Abbott Labs of Ashland, OH, and embarked a summer-long odyssey to capture the sport's holy grail: the Fastball World Championship.

That quest serves as the framework for this marvelously entertaining film; the people he plays with and against are its heart and soul. People like Nick McCurry, Ashland's never-say-die coach, who manages to run a barnstorming team on a $30,000 budget; Shane Hunuhunu, Ashland's star batter and one of a number of Maori New Zealanders who travel each year to play ball in the States (fastball is still a popular sport Down Under); and Peter J. Porcelli Sr., a flashy Florida junk-mail millionaire who bought himself what he hopes will prove to be a Championship-winning fastball team. The string of qualifying tournaments takes Spears and the team all the way from Allentown, PA, to Canada's Objiway Territory and the home of legendary fastball pitcher Darren Zack. In Plymouth, OH, Spear discovers his own family roots, then it's on to an exciting climax: the Championship in Kimberly, WI. For a film about a sport that even its most ardent fans admits is dying a slow death, it's bursting with life.  — Ken Fox

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