Best Sports Movie that doesn't end with a big game/fight/match whatever

Refresh my memory. Is that the one where Al does a Lou Gehrig speech imitation, with a "Today .. today ... today..." thing, where he also tells his family, "I hate you all?" Or am I thinking of a different episode?

 

"Now playing right field for the New Market Mallers, Sven Hunkstrom!"

 

Pretty sure it's the same one. Another great episode -- Al vs Bubba Smith in the hallway.

 

Same episode. There are some very clever references. Al talks about coming out of the the shoe fields to win mvp, and of course ends up as a shoeless Joe type. The play on the word Mallers as the team name.

The bubba smith episode had a great line that went something like;
"Did they call him spare tire because he was fat?"
"No, son, because he wore chain with a spare tire on it around his neck."

 

That was a great line. Also great, when they compared socks.

 

Well, there was that rollicking Rock Hudson-Paula Prentiss classic.

 

Does "A River Runs Through It" count?

 

Eight Men Out, of course, is partially based on the real story of the Black Sox.

I think the movie implies (I haven't seen it for a couple years so I might be off) that the scandal broke over the 1919-20 offseason.

In reality the scandal broke very late in the 1920 season, as the White Sox came down the stretch in a very tight pennant race with Cleveland and the Yankees -- and might have had a chance to dump another series.

I believe Chick Gandil sat out 1920 in a contract dispute with Comiskey, but otherwise all the suspected fixers kept playing until the lid blew off the next September.

 

Presumptive leader in the non-ball sports category. Someone mentioned A Perfect Storm and if you base it on the notion it's fishing, you still have account for it being commercial fishing. I don't think it qualifies.

This thread has me thinking I need to rewatch The Slugger's Wife.

 

Field of Dreams or Bull Durham, and it's probably not particularly close (I haven't seen some of the other films mentioned here).

The Hurricane was very good, though it's more of a crime drama with a sports-related protagonist than it is a sports movie.

 

I'll put North Dallas Forty up against any.

 

The Sandlot?