CLEVELAND - An iconic scene in the 2000 survival film Cast Away sees actor Tom Hanks break down over losing Wilson - a volleyball.
The ball, named after the company that manufactured it, was his character's sole companion after being stranded for years on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean.
But Hanks looked to have finally reunited with Wilson during a baseball game in the city of Cleveland on Friday (April 15), where he threw the first pitch.
The two-time Oscar winner approached the pitcher's mound with Wilson in hand to cheers from spectators.
The game's commentators wondered if he would be throwing the volleyball instead of a baseball, but at the last moment, Hanks placed Wilson on the ground, and brought a regular baseball out from his pocket.
But in what many netizens speculated was a gag involving remote control, Wilson kept rolling away before the Forrest Gump (1994) actor could make his throw. Finally, after some false starts, Hanks finally threw the pitch.
In Cast Away, which was directed by film legend Robert Zemeckis, Hanks' character inadvertently anthropomorphises Wilson the volleyball by smacking it with a bloody handprint, which resembles a face.
The volleyball that featured in Friday's baseball game is not the real deal though. The actual ball has become such an integral part of film history that it sold at auction last November for £230,000 (S$408,000).
An undated post on the Wilson Sporting Goods' official blog reports that the company "still (sells) 20-25,000 Cast Away balls per year".
The baseball game in Cleveland, in the American Midwestern state of Ohio, was the season opener for the Cleveland Guardians, who went on to lose to the San Francisco Giants at Progressive Field.
Hanks has a strong connection to the city, having started his acting career there with an internship at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in the 1970s.
He also has a connection to baseball, having played a baseball manager in A League Of Their Own (1992), which also starred Geena Davis and Madonna.
