My Favorite Baseball Movies

The Sandlot

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that The Sandlot is the best movie about being a boy ever.  Tyler and I would watch this movie over and over when he was younger.  We had great time laughing and repeating all our favorite lines (“You’re killing me, Smalls!” “You play ball like a girl!” “FOR-EV-ER!”).  The Sandlot doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a simple movie about close boyhood friends and their shared love of baseball.

Field of Dreams

While Field of Dreams is mainly about a man’s reconciliation with his dead father, it’s also about the power baseball has had in America to join communities and connect generations. This quote from Terence Mann (played by James Earl Jones) beautifully sums up what baseball means for many Americans:

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.”

 Bull Durham

Sports Illustrated ranked this movie as the #1 sports movie of all time….with good reason too. Bull Durham perfectly captures the determined underdog mentality of minor league baseball. Kevin Costner plays veteran catcher Crash Davis who’s given the task of mentoring immature, young pitcher, Eddie Laloosh (Tim Robbins). The in-between-the-pitches banter between Laloosh and Davis makes up some of the best dialogue in film history. The two not only battle over baseball, but also a seductive woman played by Susan Sarandon.

The Natural

Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a baseball player whose promising career was cut short in his youth by a woman. 16 years later, Roy is back to fulfill his dream of playing major league ball. Just as Achilles had his mythological armor made by the gods, Roy uses his mythic bat, appropriately named “Wonderboy,” made from a tree struck by lightning. When you get down to it, The Natural is about re-birth and going after a dream no matter what it takes.

The Bad News Bears (1976)

I love the grittiness and edginess of The Bad News Bears….the original one.  It’s a movie about a bunch of unlucky, misfit Little Leaguers coached by an uninterested ex-minor leaguer (played by the great Walter Matthau) who spends his time nursing a can of beer in the dugout instead of coaching. The kids drink and swear like sailors. But behind the cussing and pre-teen drinking is a film about finding and upholding your self-respect regardless of setbacks and not letting competition ruin the fun of the game.

Major League

When the owner of the Cleveland Indians dies, his cold-hearted widow inherits the team. She hates Cleveland, so she devises a plan to put together a team so awful that the franchise will lose their fans, allowing her to relocate to Miami. A washed-up catcher with bad knees, a crazy formerly-incarcerated pitcher with wicked speed but no control, a power hitting voodoo priest, and a pop fly-hitting base runner, make up the core of this team of misfits. Despite the team’s lack of talent, the players come together to win games just to spite the owner. Major League is a fantastic comedy, and I still laugh out loud whenever I watch it. Comedian and former American League ballplayer/WWF announcer/Mr. Belvedere star, Bob “I must be in the front row” Uecker provides some great laughs as Indians announcer Harry Doyle.

 Moneyball

Who knew a movie about baseball statistics could be so gripping? Moneyball follows Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane as he breaks away from the norm by using statistics instead of scouts to put together a winning team full of underrated ballplayers. The idea sounds boring, but it’s really another classic underdog story–here’s a guy trying to compete with much richer clubs like the Yankees and bringing together a bunch of players that everyone else had written off. It’s well acted by Brad Pitt playing Beane and Jonah Hill as his statistics man, Peter Brand. The chemistry between the two men makes the film work and the dialogue is smart and snappy.

Fever Pitch

I could watch this movie over and over.  What’s better than a love story and baseball mixed?  Relaxed and charming Ben Wrightman (Jimmy Fallon) meets workaholic Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore).  She finds him sweet and charming and they hit it off.  All is going well during winter months because Ben can spend every waking hour with Lindsey, but when summer comes, Lindsey discovers Ben's obsession with the Boston Red Sox.

 The Rookie

What would you do if you had a second chance at a dream? In The Rookie, we get to see the internal and outward struggle one man goes through when a second chance falls in his lap. Based on the true story of Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ pitcher Jim Morris, The Rookie tells the tale of how Morris went from being a washed-up minor league ballplayer coaching high school baseball in a small Texas town to pitching Major League ball at an age when most pro-pitchers retire. The Rookie is a Disney film, so it’s kinda mushy and definitely tugs at your heart strings, but I don’t care.

Trouble with the Curve

Trouble with the Curve focuses on Gus (Eastwood), an aged baseball scout who relies on his eyes, senses, and gut feelings to scout the top prospects. The trouble is, his eyes are failing and his job is on the line. Gus's friend Pete (John Goodman) is concerned about him and gives a call to Mickey (Amy Adams), Gus's daughter. Predictably, the father-daughter duo do not share a strong relationship with each, and that is tested on a road trip together to scout the newest "can't miss" prospect. Along the way, rival scout Johnny (Justin Timberlake) teaches both parts of the duo a little something about each other and their lives. You either love this movie or you hate it.  I loved it.  It isn’t the greatest sports film out there, but the plot is interesting enough to keep you invested, the emotion runs high throughout, and the acting is superb. Oh, and Timberlake looks fine as ever J

For the Love of the Game

This is an excellent baseball movie and a decent romance movie as well. Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is a veteran pitcher with an accomplished career who is headed for the Hall of Fame. On the day we meet him he has a lot on his mind. He is informed that his team is being sold, he is being traded and the love of his life is moving to England. Add to this the pain in his pitching arm, his looming decision on whether to retire and the fact that winning this game is critical in determining if the Yankees go to the playoffs, and you have a man on overloaded. This shows a fresh viewpoint for a sports movie. Instead of simply focusing on what the player is doing, the movie focuses on what he is thinking while he is doing it. It gives us an authentic look at how athletes get "in the zone", filtering out all the noise and concentrating totally on their performance.