The Diamond King Movie is Out!

I’m so excited for all of you to see the new move “The Diamond King” about baseball artist Dick Perez. I think you’ll get a huge kick out of it.

Let me get the streaming stuff out of the way — then I’ll tell you about the movie and what it was like being a part of it, and a a way you can get something really cool …

Well, no, wait. First, let me show you three random Diamond Kings cards directly from Dick’s collection::

OK, back to it. Here’s where you can rent or buy “The Diamond King."

• Apple

• Amazon Prime

• Google TV

• Kinema

And here’s the best part:

If you rent the movie and attach a proof of purchase, you can email [email protected] and get high-res photographs of every single Donruss Diamond King card ever printed directly from Dick’s set.

OK, fine, here are three more Diamond Kings, I can’t help myself.

I got involved with the movie more than a year ago when I got an email from Michelle Quisenberry — the cousin of the great Dan Quisenberry. I believe we met at Dan’s funeral. She told me about a project she and documentary director Marq Evans had started: A documentary on Dick Perez.

Marq had been opening up some old cards with his son, and they came across a Diamond King, and thought (for the first time in his life) — “Hey, who painted these?”

It’s actually very funny how nobody I know ever thought about who painted the Diamond Kings. Dick says that he actually never received letters from anybody back when he first painted them. He hears from people all the time now.

This spark him down one of those wonderful rabbit holes; Dick’s story is truly wonderful. He came to America from Puerto Rico as a small boy after the untimely death of his father. He wanted to become a baseball player and he wanted to become a painter. In short order, he realized that becoming a baseball player wasn’t really an option.

Through a series of breaks, blessed connections and otherworldly talent, he became the official artist for the Philadelphia Phillies* and official artist for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Marq and Michelle asked me to write narration, and that didn’t make any sense to me at first. I didn’t know Dick and couldn’t quite figure out what they were asking. It turns out that Marq had this big vision — he’d gotten the marvelous John Ortiz to agree to do the narration, and he wanted John to be more than just a behind-the-scenes narrator. He wanted John to be on screen to represent baseball itself. The history of the sport. The spirit. The beating heart of the game.

So, yeah, he was asking me to write narration to help John become the living embodiment of baseball joy.

I’ve been asked to do a lot of odd sportswriting things over the years — I was a U.S. Army Moneyball consultant (really). I “wrote” the movie for the Baseball Hall of Fame (though none of my actual words are in it; it was a different kind of writing). But this felt like the oddest. Of course, I accepted. And I’m so proud of how it turned out. John is simply amazing.

Fine, three more Diamond Kings — three of my favorite people:

Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy the film a lot. It’s about the artist, first and foremost, and everybody loves Dick Perez. But it’s also about seeing baseball through his eyes, and I don’t think you have to love baseball to enjoy seeing the world through the eyes of an artist.

But if you DO love baseball, and I suspect you do.

I think this might make you love it even more.

One more time, you can rent or buy at Apple, Amazon, Google Play and Kinema, and if you send in your proof of purchase, you will get the whole set of Diamond King photos. Oh, and if you BUY the movie, you will automatically be entered to win all sorts of great prizes.

And here’s a bonus podcast for your enjoyment: