Why I Think Kevin Costner is Bullshit

I will always, until he proves me otherwise

Photo copy of Wikimedia Commons.

My dissolution with Kevin Costner dates back to the year 1999. A 44-year-old Coster was proclaiming to be able to throw a baseball 80 miles an hour in an interview on NPR.

Possibly started by Costner himself, it was rumored that at one time in his life, he could bring a fastball at 84 miles an hour as measured by the accurate JUGS Radar Gun.

True, Costner had played baseball when he was in high school and tried out for the college team at Cal State Fullerton (but was cut before he saw the field).

Costner has also starred in baseball-themed hits such as Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.

His latest project loosely connected with America’s pastime is owning a team in the recently formed Big League Wiffl Ball (BLW), a 10-team league where Costner owns the Los Angeles Naturals.

I respect Costner’s love of the game. I even like him as an actor. I’ve seen many of his movies, including loyally watching Yellowstone, a non-baseball related western series on the Paramount Network from 2018 through 2024.

But Kevin, please don’t bullshit me and the rest of your fans by telling us you threw an 80 miles an hour fastball in the movie For Love of the Game when you were 44 years old.

Many Major League pitchers in their prime didn’t throw that fast back in 1999.

And here’s why….

The Goshen County Fair

Sometime after I heard the NPR interview with Kevin Costner, I took my kids to the Goshen County Fair. It usually runs for a week toward the end of July. It’s not much, but my kids loved it. A small Ferris wheel, a carousel, bumper cars, a bubble bounce, a pie-eating contest, a JUGS Radar Gun, and a pitching cage.

Wait, a JUGS Radar Gun? Brian, the instrument that Major League Baseball uses to measure the speed of a thrown baseball? At the fair?

“Dad! Dad! You’ve got to do it,” my youngins teased after wracking up speed scores of below 20 miles an hour.

Par for pee-wee level players.

But for a 48-year-old dad? I was genuinely curious what I could score when I handed the carnie my $5 for three balls to be measured by the radar gun.

I stepped into the 10x30 cage that had a faux pitcher’s mound on one end and a crude batter’s box on the other. The fellow who manned the JUGS gun was stationed outside the cage with the measuring device pointing at the “pitcher” when he released the ball on the mound.

Costner 80 miles an hour at 44?

Barrabee ??? at 48?

And Hey Kevin: I’ve had a bit ’o baseball too. I made my Little League All-Star team three out of four years I played. I guarded first base in high school and was still coaching my three kids at whichever level they were playing at the time.

I make my case

To say I was disappointed with my performance would not begin to describe my ambivalent feelings that afternoon at the Goshen County Fair.

On one hand, my physical achievement was sub-par: my first ball went almost straight up in the air out of the range of the radar device. My second, with an adjustment in throwing motion, went almost straight down.

Realizing the pressure was on with my third and last ball, I reared back and with all my might and main let fly a pitch straight and true.

The searing pain in my shoulder spoke of going to the sports medicine clinic as soon as I could get an appointment.

The disappointing result of my last and best throw was 54 miles per hour.

However, on the other hand, intellectually, I scored a complete victory. Eighty miles an hour at age 44, poppycock!

Kevin Costner, I rest my case.

Thanks for reading my story.