The beer-guzzling big league has-been --
A team of bungling half-pints --
Together they made baseball history...
Sort of!
It was the greatest challenge of Buttermaker's fading career--to whip this bruised and battered gang of "jerks, foreigner, sissies, nose-pickers, delinquents and clumsy little runts" into a winning team.
Impossible? Maybe.
But a thirsty man can always use a few bucks. And he did have one secret weapon--Amanda, the spitball wizard!
***
This is somewhat different than the final film. The most notable difference is that the children do not use profanity. Whether this element was added during filming or a later script I don't know. The film is far funnier as a result. Buttermaker, played by Walter Matthau in the film, is described as a 35-year-old in the novelization--more like Chevy Chase--and is again not as humorous as what ended up in the film.
It tells the same basic plot, but we get glimpses of the Bears at home, all of which amps up the sentimental nature of the story. The film wisely plays down sentimentality and is all the better for it.
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