The film has some great baseball playing and situations but 'Sugar' is not necessarily a baseball movie. It's also about immigration, the world becoming a smaller place, and chasing but not always finding your dream. In that regards, this is a completely atypical sports film (but I'm already giving away too much).
One interesting paradox for me was as Sugar, the nickname for the pitching prospect, navigates the cutthroat world of professional baseball he is surrounded by nice and friendly folks who help him out off the field - the surrogate father in the Dominican who taught him the game after his father died, the Arizona waitress who teaches him how to order eggs, the Iowa farm family who serve as his host, the bonus-baby draft pick from Stanford, and the Hispanic-American support system that buoys him later in the film.
Not just a great baseball movie, but a great movie. Check it out.
And let me know if you find the soundtrack anywhere, which features some TV on the Radio and a Spanish version of Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah."
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