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What: “For Love of the Game”

Where: Theaters everywhere

As baseball movies go, this may not be a home run. But it’s close.

Sure, there are flaws. For one thing, the filmmakers, unfortunately imitating television’s coverage of baseball, shot too many tight close-ups of players. Also, the movie is a bit long--tighter editing was needed--and it is unrealistic.

But it is entertaining.

Kevin Costner matches his roles in “Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams,” and there is a plus--Vin Scully in more than a cameo.

Scully’s marvelous voice and style bring reality to the baseball scenes.

If you don’t know the story, Costner stars as Billy Chapel, an aging pitcher for the Detroit Tigers who is facing a trade or retirement. He is pitching the final game of the season against the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium, at the same time reflecting on his five-year relationship with Jane Aubrey, played by Kelly Preston.

Scully said of the movie, “It’s baseball and a love affair. How can you not like it?”

Scully said his scenes, with Fox’s Steve Lyons as the commentator, were filmed in a studio at Universal Studios and that director Sam Raimi gave him leeway to call the game as he usually would call a game.

“The difference here was, I knew the outcome,” Scully said. “But I had to call the game as though I didn’t.”

One line is vintage Scully. He talks about Chapel “pushing the sun into the sky one more time.” That line was in the script. But Scully also says, “he’s turned Yankee Stadium, which has always been a cathedral, into a chapel,” and that’s a Scully ad lib.

Scully said former Cal State Fullerton baseball coach Augie Garrido, now at Texas, was the baseball consultant and gave quite an emotional speech to the minor league players who were in the the baseball scenes. “He talked about Yankee Stadium, the Yankee uniform, Yankee pride, and what this movie would mean to baseball,” Scully said. “It was something to hear.”

Lyons, a former major leaguer, says the baseball scenes are the best he has seen in a movie. Of his lines, he said, “My humor ended up on the cutting room floor,” and of the movie, he said, “It’s more a love story than a baseball movie.”

Scully said the infielder involved in the climactic scene at the end of the game is Jose Mota, son of Manny. That scene was re-shot at Scully’s request.

“The way it was originally was just too unrealistic--a one-in-a-billion shot” he said.

Overall, Scully enjoyed making the movie, although, he said, “I don’t think I’ll be switching careers.”