CNN.com - Dennis Quaid's 'Rookie' campaign

'It's about second chances in life'

Dennis Quaid, seen here in "The Rookie," says he likes portraying the drama of sports.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Run-run-run-run-run. That was Dennis Quaid during his United States tour to promote baseball's Cinderella story, "The Rookie."

"I love the movie so much. That's the reason I want to go around to all of these cities. We're doing screenings, and just getting word-of-mouth going on the film."

The film had its wide-release debut this weekend, landing at No. 3 at box offices behind "Panic Room" and "Ice Age." (Read a report on the weekend's box office results.)

It's based on the book, "The Oldest Rookie," which is co-authored (with Joel Engel) by real-life oldest-rookie Jim Morris. The book is being published this month by Little, Brown (a sister AOL Time Warner company to CNN).

In the Disney-produced film, Quaid plays a man who gets a second chance in baseball's big leagues, but he rebuffs such bat-'n'-glove descriptions of the film. "The movie is really about much more than baseball," he says. "I think it transcends the sport it's about. It's about second chances in life, which I think all of us have."

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"There's a lot of drama in sport. It's an interesting life -- the life of an athlete -- it's very compressed. Just when you reach your prime your career is over. And they're telling you, 'You can't play anymore.'"

'Really extraordinary things'

The second chance in question begins, for Jim Morris, at age 35. So far the oldest rookie to join the ranks of baseball's majors, he was signed as a relief pitcher by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 after making good on a bet.

Quaid says, "When I read it, I said to myself, 'If this was a piece of fiction I don't think I could do it because it would be too unbelievable.' But all these really extraordinary things happened -- and in a fairy-tale way -- to this ordinary guy."

When Morris coached high-school baseball, his players dared him to try out for the majors if they won their league championship.

Quaid says the Texas setting for these events helped him draw on things he shares with the character: "Family is the most important thing to me, as well," he says. "I have a 9-year-old boy and so we have that in common. Both of us are from Texas. I just call my mother on the phone, and five minutes later I'm right back."

"My son is Number One. There are times I have to work, go away and do a film. I always make sure that I can come home on the weekends so we have time for each other."

'Try to get him right'

"When I read it," Quaid says about, "The Rookie," "I said to myself, 'If this was a piece of fiction I don't think I could do it because it would be too unbelievable.'"

Quaid says that during the making of "The Rookie," he spent a lot of time with Morris.

"As soon as I signed on to do the movie Jim came over to the house and we threw baseballs in the front yard and he was on the set everyday."

"Some actors don't like to meet the person that they're playing -- they like to keep the characters fictitious. But I thought it was good to access somebody. If somebody were doing my life story I'd feel a little nervous ... I had to try to get him right."

"He has a humility to him, which is really rare to find in a person. He has small-town values. That's what I tried to reflect in the film."

Personal issues, private life

While Morris told his story voluntarily, Quaid had a different experience when his separation from his former wife Meg Ryan became fodder for the tabloids.

Quaid told Larry King in a March 12 interview, "It's hard enough to begin with going through the pain of a divorce and a breakup. Especially because of the kids. But to have it be so public is so wrong. And of course the tabloids are always going to sensationalize everything."

Now that the dust has settled, Quaid says the stress of the divorce has prompted him to take up smoking again.

And he's currently working on a Todd Haynes film, "Far From Heaven," said now to be in post-production.

"It's 180 degrees from 'The Rookie,'" he says. "Perfect family in the 1950s with a lot of deep dark secrets that they're hiding."