15
FRIDAY
In 1995, painter and sculptor Jeremy Spear decided to take a break from the New York art world and go play fast-pitch softball for a semipro team in tiny Ashland, Ohio. How much of a break? Well, he took a camera crew with him. What Spear found, besides a chance to relive his days with the Yale baseball team, was a Chinese box of subcultures. Fastpitch introduces the game’s premisea smaller diamond makes for faster play than in baseballand a diverse cast: New Zealanders, who love the sport, spend their summers in the U.S. playing it, while one American Indian team from Canada uses fast pitch to spread its temperance message. The film extols fast pitch’s “purity,” and the villain is a big spender whose Florida team spends more on uniforms than most teams budget for salaries. This is a documentary, though, so don’t expect the underdogs to win the championship. It screens at 8 p.m. at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Ring Auditorium, 7th and Independence Ave. SW. Free. (202) 357-2700. (Mark Jenkins)