Tom Hanks reunites with Wilson the volleyball

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 Cleveland last Friday, 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".