Costner plays Billy Chapel, a veteran pitcher who has spent his entire 15-year career with the Detroit Tigers and is certain to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The film begins with Chapel preparing to pitch his final game of the season as the Tigers are in New York to visit the Yankees. Chapel, who was once a power fastball, now has to get by on smarts as his weary arm has little left. Before going out to the mound for his final turn against the Bronx Bombers, Chapel is visited in his hotel suite by the Tigers' owner Gary Wheeler (Brian Cox). Wheeler informs Chapel that he is selling the team because the economics of the games are working against him. To make matters worse, his own kids and grandkids have no interest in the old nation pastime. He tells Chapel that he must retire, or he will trade him to the Giants because his prospective buyers do not want to be burdened with his salary.

Had this film concentrated on the out-of-whack economics of baseball or on what Chapel is going to do to keep sane after he hangs up his spikes then "For Love Of The Game" would have had some meaning. Unfortunately, Costner's Billy Chapel is so bland that we learn very little about what makes him tick. Instead, what we get is Chapel spurting out clichés to his boss. To make things even worse, Costner plagiarizes himself as he borrows the gimmick of showing home movies of playing catch with his father. That was, of course, one of the most famous scenes of "Field of Dreams."

The film's main flaw is that the crux of the film does not deal with baseball, but rather with Chapel's on again off again romance with a New York based freelance magazine writer named Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston). Aubrey is a whining annoying sort who makes you wonder why Chapel wastes his energy trying to placate her. There is absolutely no chemistry between Costner and the usually excellent Preston. The relationship between the two leads is explained in a very clumsy flashback sequence that lasts the entire film.

The other plotline of "For Love Of The Game" is that Chapel is on the mound, pitching an implausible perfect game against a fictitious bunch of Yankees. There is little drama here, since we pretty much know what the result is going to be. The only joy is that we get to hear baseball's greatest broadcaster, Vin Scully, doing the play-by-play.

If you love movies, avoid "For Love Of The Game."