The Mr. Glass Experience

The movie Sugar is about a young Dominican baseball player, Miguel “Sugar” Santos, and his struggles as he tries to reach his dream of making it to the majors, and becoming a superstar. It takes you on a journey through all of his difficulties in his first season before he ultimately breaks down. His immediate success in the minors slowly turns into frustration and failure. The main conflict in the movie seems to be the multitude of struggles a young baseball player has to overcome. Conversely, even the system created by the pro baseball industry that forces players to go through these hypothetical hoops. When you take a deeper look at the film, you realize the real conflict in this story is not of man versus the system, or even man versus self, it is that of man versus man, Sugar Santos versus the real antagonist, Salvador Torres.

Conflict between the two players’ starts early on in the movie, off the field. In the beginning of the movie Salvador Torres, signs for $115,000 to the Kansas City Knight’s baseball academy. We learn that Sugar Santos signed for only $15,000 two years earlier. When Torres tells Santos about his newly signed deal, he also asks him how much he had signed for.. You can see the look of jealousy on Santos’s face as he lies and says, “You know, about the same” (Sugar 14:48). This is the first form of competition presented between the two is that of trying to earn the most money, and Santos is failing. The fact that he signed for so much less bothers Santos immensely, driving him to work on becoming the better pitcher. When they both receive invites to Kansas City’s Spring Training, Santos outshines his competition. His newly discovered knuckle curve earns him a spot on the Single-A team in Bridgetown, Iowa. While Torres has to start out his season on the Rookie league team, in Arizona. Santos is succeeding, using the competition Torres represents as fuel. He is surprising the organization, and earning a standing as a rising star. At this point in the movie, it seems that Santos is going to wind up being the better player of the two.

When Salvador Torres earns a promotion to Single-A halfway through the season, the contest between the two takes on an elevated role. The team immediately accepts Torres as one of them. While Santos achieved quick success, he was never able to earn approval from his teammates. “You could learn a thing or two from him,” the manager says when talking about Torres, further showing Santos’s growing alienation (Sugar 1:08:14). This scene shows the difference in the levels of acceptance the two have achieved. Where back in the Dominican Republic Santos was the funny teammate and Torres was the quiet new person, their roles have reversed in this new land. Santos continues to struggle with this, questioning why his teammates have not accepted him, as well as his declining role on the team. He has become the outcast of the group. Because of this Santos’s resentment towards Torres grows. The looks and stares he gives show the jealousy building up inside of him. This resentment combined with the injury Santos is just recovering from, build on his growing frustrations. The conflict between the two is getting the best of Santos.

When Sugar Santos makes his first start back from his injury, he struggles to control his pitches. By the fourth inning, the manager pulls him from the game. The fans scream slurs at him as he walks off the field, only adding to the rage and frustration building up inside of him. Salvador Torres comes in as the relief pitcher for Santos and gets off to a hot start. The success Torres achieves comes as Santos is failing. The fans hatred and yells of anger replace the praises and cheers that were for Santos at the beginning of the season. These same fans begin cheering Torres, showing their willingness to accept him. He takes Santos’ role as the fan favorite, and eventually replaces him in the starting rotation. The quick acceptance by the fans of Torres is something that Santos cannot handle. Everywhere around him, Santos is losing grip. It is apparent that the mental tolls of the competition are causing Santos to struggle, both on and off the field. Torres is quickly taking over his role, both on the team and with the fans.

Clearly, Salvador Torres has now become the rising superstar. No longer are the announcers and fans praising Sugar Santos. Torres is receiving all of the praise, and boasting about his award of Player of the Week. Santos begins to take his rage out physically, and continues to struggle on the mound. The whole time Torres is oblivious to Santos growing animosity towards him, which only increases as he continues to struggle. When Santos arrives to the team bus for an away game, the tension he has built up towards Torres becomes apparent. He refuses to let Torres help him with his bags, pulling away from him, and blankly glaring at Torres as he heads to the clubhouse. Torres is confused, and gives him a friendly wave, but Santos just continues to glare, before slipping into the clubhouse. The competition has become too much for Santos. He is mentally beat. Finally, Santos accepts defeat by quitting and not returning to the bus. Instead, he heads to New York City, leaving the team, and his dreams of making it in the big leagues behind. It is apparent that the conflict between the two has helped propel ones career while crumbling the others. The competition Torres brought has taken its toll on Santos. Torres has soundly beat Santos into submission.

Sugar Santos’s struggle to make it in baseball is not because of a system that set him up for failure, or because of an injury that he suffers during his season. It becomes clear that the conflict in the story is that of man versus man. Santos’s failure is a direct result of subconscious conflict between two teammates. Even though it appears as though Santos would become the superstar, he quickly declines. Salvador Torres beats him in both direct and indirect conflict. In the end, the success Torres achieves propels him into becoming the rising superstar, not Santos. Santos’s inability to handle the competition presented to him by Torres proves that he is the reason for Santos’s decline, and the real antagonist in this story. Torres’s arrival on the team is not only a catalyst for change in the tone of the movie; it also leads to the eventual departure from the team by Santos, and him quitting the game he loves. Consequently, it reveals that Santos’s real antagonist is actually his friend, teammate, and closest competitor, Salvador Torres.

Works Cited

Sugar. Dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Perf. Algenis Perez Soto, Kelvin Leonardo Garcia, Rayniel Rufino. Sony Pictures Classics, 2008.

Here is the official trailer for the gem of a movie by Sony Pictures Classic, Sugar