A great deal of this movie was filmed at an old ballpark in Buffalo, New York as well as Wrigley Field, in Chicago. The director and cinematographer both love these old parks.

It's a better movie to watch then to pay attention to, for the most part.

(So, in that way it is much like an earlier Robert Redford movie, The Great Gatsby).

This movie was "based" on the novel-The Natural, (1980),
by Bernard Malamud.

The first part of the novel is about a young baseball player.

The rest of the story is so different from the movie that one wonders if Levinson actually read it. Few Hollywood films based on novels have been faithful to their source, and this is not one of them.