JUPITER, Fla. — Salon.com calls it the “best baseball movie ever,” and in this morning’s New York Times, A.O. Scott writes that the movie, “Sugar”, is “infused with a deep affection for baseball.”

Say nothing of the job the St. Louis Cardinals’ Quad Cities affiliate did as a supporting actor.

The movie, “Sugar”, opens in New York today and in wider release later. It tells the story of Miguel “Sugar” Santos as he rises from a Dominican Republic baseball academy and into the minor leagues. With all of the coverage here and elsewhere about the Cardinals expanding presence in Latin America and their work to sign, develop and eventually produce talent the movie, according to reviews, offers a revealing glimpse into that path, that approach the Cardinals are attempting to take. It only furthers helps the home crowd here that Santos eventually pitches for the Cardinals Low-A affiliate.

You’ll recognize the uniforms, the ballpark, the gorgeous Centennial Bridge stretching over the Mississippi and shining in the backdrop, over the shoulder of any starting pitcher.

Check out the trailer:

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The movie, which carries an R rating, is by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the tandem that made “Half Nelson”, and they both told Newsday that they sought to avoid the standard “cliches” of sports movies, especially baseball movies. There is no dramatic, title-clinching, uplifting, Kevin Costner-gauzy finish, according to reviews. Said Fleck to Newsday: “What interested us was not the guy who becomes Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez. We felt like there are hundreds of other guys who go though the same journey every year. We wanted to go through what happens to those guys.”

The movie was filmed toward the end of the 2007 season, back when the Quad Cities affiliate was known as the Swing of the Quad Cities. (It has since been renamed the Quad Cities River Bandits.) For the movie, the team was renamed the Bridgetown Swing, but the jerseys and the clubhouse and the logos and the caps are all Quad Cities. According to MLB.com, the sweeping view of The River and the bridge outside of Modern Woodmen Park was part of the reason it was picked to serve as the baseball backdrop for “Sugar.”

Watch closely and you’ll get a eyeful of how the Cardinals’ Low-A minor leaguers’ digs look, how the field plays and what life for them can be like.

Salon.com, the review that hypes it as the best baseball movie, has an interesting Q & A with the filmmakers and all of the reviews linked above give you more detail on the movies plot, including a plot twist at the end that apparently sets the movie apart. The Salon.com review also offers a snapshot of the baseball in “Sugar”. Writes Andrew O’Hehir:

Are there any other baseball movies that work equally well for hardcore fans and for those totally uninterested in the game? Boden and Fleck like and understand baseball, and their game scenes are far more realistic than those you generally see on film. But “Sugar” isn’t fundamentally a story about winning or losing in baseball.

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