Probably like most kids my age at the time, I found this to be the *second* coolest movie of summer 1977 (gee, what do you suppose was the first). But with age comes awakening and through viewings in my later years the holes in this script broke out like jock itch. Although some of the gaps were plugged in the paperback, it still left a leaky script up there on the screen.
First bad play is the lack of explanation as to why the Bears, and not the league-champion Yankees, get to travel to Houston. Later, the kids are held on suspicion of grand theft auto for their van (which they earlier admitted to secretly "borrowing") but the issue is never resolved, so what's the point of making the vehicle hot in the first place? Of course, the hardest pitch to hit is the idea that a Houston home crowd would unanimously root for a visiting team, regardless of some sappy news story of a kid back home with a broken leg. On that note, the photo given to Lupus of his heroic catch from the first film is said to have been taken by Ogilvie's dad. Yet the photo is nothing more than the actual shot itself from the first film. That would mean that Ogilvie's dad would have to have been standing right next to Lupus in the outfield when that catch was made. Okay, okay. This one *is* nitpicky but I hate when movies flub little details like this. Finally, it's established that the winner of the Houston game will advance to a game in Japan. Yet in the next film, BNB Go to Japan (1978), no mention is made, even by the Bears themselves, of the Houston victory and they travel to the land of the rising sun for other reasons, which they address on a talk show hosted by Regis. Even back *then* the man was everywhere.
Trivia: In Paul Brickman's paperback adaptation of his screenplay, Ronzoni spins a tale of scoring with a babysitter. This monologue would later resurface verbatim years later in Brickman's script for Risky Business (1983), in which Tom Cruise, in an early scene, brags to his buddies about scoring with a babysitter.
