Top 10 Baseball Flicks

Long Gone.
Stars William Petersen, Virginia Madsen, Dermot Mulroney, Henry Gibson and Teller (from Penn and Teller fame -- with actual speaking lines) and others.
Made by HBO Films and came out in 1987. About a Florida minor league team called the Tampico Stogies in the 1950s.
I don't think it's ever been put on DVD, but don't let that stop you from watching it.

 

Probably the most unrealistic part of that movie.

 

"The Natural" is like "Blade Runner" for me: No matter how many chances I give it, I just can't find a reason to like it. And as much as I respect Ron Shelton as a filmmaker, I never liked "Bull Durham." That said, I believe any Top 10 is epic fail without it.

And as much as I enjoyed "Major League" -- Taylor's at-bat at the end is so perfectly choreographed and subtly scored, I am still on the edge of my seat even after a million viewings -- I could never put it in the Top 10.

 

I love Bull Durham, the Sandlot and A League of Their Own. I found the Sandlot in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart about a year ago and it went right in the cart. ALotO has been one of my favorite movies since it came out.

 

Bull Durham.

 

In no particular order...

Bull Durham
Little Big League (yeah, hokey. But tell me mom wasn't a MILF)
Bang the Drum Slowly
The Natural
Major League
Alibi Ike
Field of Dreams
Bad News Bears (Original)
Eight Men Out
A League of Their Own (and I agree with Ragu)

(Choosing the Great Escape as a baseball movie is like choosing the Odd Couple because of the triple play.)

 

Excellent pull.

 

I would like The Natural a whole lot more if it had stayed true to the book, which was great.

As for me, Bull Durham, Major League, Field Of Dreams, Sandlot are my favorites. 61 was quite good also.

 

bad news bears is sooooo overrated.

 

The only role Matthau was ever better-suited for was Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace . . . and Dennis the Menace was an epic piece of shit.

BNB was anything but.

The original, only, of course. All sequels sucked rocks.

 

No love for The Fan?

 

fossy beat me to the punch on Long Gone. This movie was Bull Durham before Bull Durham, and IMHO is far superior. It has more main characters, and those characters have much more depth than those in Bull Durham.

Here's a great exchange between the two stars, William Peterson, who played Stud Cantrel, and Virginia Madsen, who played Dixie Lee Boxx, after a drunken night of sex just after they met:

Boxx: You got me drunk.
Cantrel: Honey, that ain't the half of it.

If you haven't seen this movie, put it on your to-do list.

Peterson landed the lead role (and nailed it) after he was turned down for a part in Platoon.