A Miracle in Bayside

As writers Doris Kearns Goodwin and George Will can attest, few things can shape your perspective on life like cheering for a bad baseball team. When you have no hope that your club can win the World Series--or even win more often than it loses, the world can seem a heartless and depressing place.

I know. I'm a lifelong New York Mets fan. Those early years, after the team entered the National League in 1962, taught me the meaning of "diminished expectations." No World Series hopes there. Not even first-division hopes. Just satisfaction in a week of .500 baseball or delight in the (very) occasional Ed Kranepool home run.

Then came the 1969 Miracle Mets, who came out of nowhere to beat the indomitable Baltimore Orioles for the World Championship. It was as if God was saying, "Don't get too smug down there. I can still turn your expectations upside down." In other words, miracles can and do happen.

Think I'm investing five 30-year-old baseball games with too much significance? I'm not alone. In the new film "Frequency," the 1969 Mets also serve as a reminder that miracles do happen. The Mets, along with an unusual appearance of the Aurora Borealis over New York, become metaphors for the miraculous.

The film, directed Gregory Hoblit ("Primal Fear," "Fallen") and written by Toby Emmerich, tells the story of Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid), a New York City fireman whose hobby is operating a ham radio, his wife, Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell), and their son, John (James Caviezel). It's October 10, 1969, the eve of the 1969 World Series, and when the folks in Bayside (Queens) aren't talking about the series, they're talking about the unusual appearance of the Aurora Borealis--the first time in 90 years these heavenly lights have been visible over the city.

Cut to October 10, 1999. The Aurora is back, but not much else remains the same. Frank is dead, killed on October 12, 1969. John's life is a mess. The woman who loves him has just left him, and he's drinking too much. Just as his life hits bottom, John stumbles across his dad's old ham radio. Hooking it up, John hears a familiar but out-of-place voice. It's his dad. Somehow, the two Auroras, exactly 30 years apart, have brought father and son together again.

As soon as John realizes what's happening, he immediately sets outs to undo the circumstances that cost him his dad. Naturally, Frank is skeptical. It's only John's knowledge of the outcome of the 1969 World Series that convinces Frank that the voice on the ham radio is on the level--ultimately changing what happened on October 12, 1969.

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