Jimmy Fallon’s romantic comedy “Fever Pitch” is about a topic near and dear to the “SNL” alum’s heart: Baseball. Co-starring Drew Barrymore, the film opens Friday and features Fallon as a die-hard Red Sox fan who is eventually forced to choose between his girlfriend and a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game. The Brooklyn native told RedEye about the filming and the love he’s been getting from Cubs fans lately.
So how does a Yankees fan get excited about doing a film involving the BoSox?
You get to work with Drew Barrymore and the Farrelly Brothers. That was exciting. I’m not as obsessed with baseball as my character in this movie. Ben is like a really, really die-hard Red Sox fan. He has Red Sox pillowcases, Red Sox sheets, a poster of Carl Yastrzemski in his living room and a framed Sports Illustrated cover of Tony Conigliaro.
Did you get caught up in the whole “Curse of the Bambino” thing?
It was impossible not to get caught up in it. It was a very exciting thing–86 years.
What kind of research did you do?
I hung out with the fans. I went and sat in every chair in Fenway. I got to really absorb it. We didn’t think that they were going to win. The Boston fans didn’t think they were going to win. If we said the Red Sox were going to win in our script, people would have been like, “Bull! What kind of movie is this?”
Did you play baseball as a kid?
Yeah, when I was a kid, probably the first thing I ever wanted to be was a baseball player. Then I hit puberty and realized I should be doing something else.
Do you have any kind of obsession that’s even close to Ben’s?
I was obsessed with “Saturday Night Live” my whole life. I’d been watching it since I was 7 years old. In high school I would sit in my room and watch the show and tape it. I wanted to be like the next Dana Carvey. Even when I was in college I would never go out to parties or anything like that until the show was over.
You co-own a minor-league team (Brockton Rox) with Bill Murray. How involved are you?
I went once, and the game got rained out. But I got free hot dogs. No, basically, I just own a small, small part of the team. Massachusetts is a great sports place. They love sports. In Boston it’s beyond baseball. It’s almost like a religion–like family. It’s deep. Like when they won the World Series, I don’t think Boston fans were thinking that, oh, we have a trophy, we have a ring. They were like I have to call my dad.
Does Murray ever talk to you about his obsession with the Cubs?
The Cubs. I’m getting scripts sent to me from them right now. They want me to play a Cubs fan in the sequel: “Ben Moves to Chicago.”
Did you get any cool memorabilia from the set or the players?
Completely, yeah. I got dirt from the mound in St. Louis, which I gave to a friend of mine who produced Weekend Update. I got some batting gloves–they let me do batting practice. They have pine tar on them.
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Edited by the sports staff of RedEye.
