Rickey Hill’s baseball career began with sticks, stones and a little bit of faith.
“I just picked up a rock because it’s free, doesn’t cost any money,” the now-67-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, remembered spending up to 15 hours a day hitting rocks with sticks as a child. “You can grab a rock anywhere on the street and hit it.”
As a boy who grew up wearing leg braces, he could barely run. But, he discovered, he could hit.
A new movie promises to tell the true story of Hill, a man who overcame incredible odds to play professional baseball. Starring Dennis Quaid and Colin Ford, “The Hill” introduces Hill as a boy who grew up in poverty while struggling with degenerative spinal disease. His love of baseball divides his family: Hill’s protective father, a pastor, discourages his son from playing in the hopes that he will follow in his footsteps as a preacher. Instead, Hill’s faith empowers him to persevere and pursue his dream of baseball.
The film, rated PG, hit theaters beginning Aug. 25. Moviegoers can find screenings near them at thehillmov.com.
Embracing the script
Director Jeff Celentano said that the script, in addition to meeting Hill, inspired him to direct the movie.
“I thought it was the most unusual story I’ve ever read, that this kid did this incredible thing through every adverse situation you can imagine,” he said before highlighting one of the screenwriters, Angelo Pizzo, who is responsible for sports films including “Rudy.”
Looking back, Celentano estimated that he began working on the movie nearly 20 years ago.
“It wasn’t a question of if I was going to do it,” he told Our Sunday Visitor. “It was a question of how was I going to do it.”
For his part, Hill said that the movie stays true to what actually happened.
“Everything that you see is right to a T,” he shared with Our Sunday Visitor.
Overcoming struggles
Hill touched on the struggle between his dream and his father’s dream for him.
“Dad wanted me in the ministry,” he said. “I did too, at one time, but baseball came calling.”
Hill also talked about his physical struggle before trying out for professional baseball.
“I was just between 16 and 17 and I found out that I had a degenerative spine and I had the spine of a 60- to 70-year-old man,” he said. “I had to take that into consideration; am I going to be able to make it? Am I going to be able to swing it and make it through? And I didn’t really know, but I decided that I’m going through no matter what.”
Today, Celentano revealed, Hill has six cages, a 14-inch rod, and nine screws holding his back together.
Importance of faith
Hill said that his Christian faith inspired his journey to baseball.
“Had it not been for that, there wouldn’t even have been a journey,” he said. “The only thing that kept me in survival was our faith in Christ.”
Celentano, also a Christian, shared that he made the movie for both a mainstream audience and a Christian audience. But for him, he said, faith is “everything” in this movie. He shared a conversation he had with Dennis Quaid, who plays Hill’s father, after reading the script.
“He said, ‘There’s no way this kid did this. I’ve never heard of anybody doing anything like this,'” Celentano remembered. “And I go, ‘It wasn’t Rickey.'”
A message for moviegoers
If moviegoers take away one thing after watching “The Hill,” Celentano hopes that they remember to never give up.
“You can achieve anything you want if you never give up,” he said. “Rickey is a true testament to that. I am too.”
In his decades-long journey with “The Hill,” Celentano said that he ran into hurdles, from people discouraging him to the movie falling apart four times because of financing difficulties.
Celentano shared his advice to persevere: “Trust your heart. And have faith in God — and if you have that faith and know that Somebody Else is taking care of things, not you, it’ll work out.”
For viewers who are not Christian, Hill hoped that the movie would, at the very least, leave them thinking about who Christ is. Like Celentano, he also wanted moviegoers to take away the message to never give up and, in particular, never give up on faith.
“You can give up on a lot of things, but that’s where it all begins, in your faith in Christ,” he said. “I can’t say enough about that because he comes first.”
