Top 10 Baseball Flicks

The Natural has a scene where the Knights are at Wrigley, the Cubs are shown with three runs on the board when Hobbs comes up to bat in the first.

Drives me nuts every time I see it.

 

I loved that movie.

I've never seen The Natural, Field of Dreams, The Fan, Bull Durham, Pride of the Yankees, For the Love of the Game, The Great Escape, It Happens Every Spring, etc.

My favorites are:

1. Major League
2. Eight Men Out
3. The Sandlot
4. Major League II
5. Rookie of the Year
6. Little Big League
7. A League of Their Own
8. 61*
9. Bad News Bears (from what I remember)
10. Major League III: Back to the Minors

I could only think of 10 I've seen.

 

True that. DB Sweeney (especially) and Cusack were entirely believable as players, as were a couple of the pitchers and the guy who played Chick Gandill, who I just saw as a small-town cop on "Criminal Minds," nailed that role as well.

It's an outstanding movie.

I also think Ray Liotta is great as Shoeless Joe, even if he doesn't measure up historically. He looks like a player. That's why Charlie Sheen is believable in baseball movies as well, while no one in a million years would believe Tom Berenger was a catcher.

 

Just released today, "Sugar" a new baseball flick by a couple of indie filmmakers,

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090416.wsugar0417/BNStory/Entertainment/home

Sugar combines two genres that are typically laden with clichés — the sports flick plus the coming-to-America tale — and rubs away all the melodramatic varnish, leaving only the natural grain of life's small victories and lingering disappointments. The co-directors, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, did much the same in their previous feature, Half Nelson, reversing the usual polarities of the inspiring-teacher-in-the-ghetto picture. Clearly, the pair have an instinct for honesty if not a flair for style — what their camera lacks in craft their pen makes up in candour.

Sounds very promising and here's a terrific interview with the two filmmakers who are also life partners.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090416.ASUGAR16ART1632/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Movies/

 

Just watched Sandlot the other day for the first time in awhile. It's held up remarkably well, and I still find most of it quite humorous.

 

I still gasp when I hear, "You play ball like a girl."

Hams is lucky he didn't get killed.

 

Watched The Sandlot with my 5-year-old son a few weeks back and he loved it. He still imitates "Squints" now and then and I thought the casting was outstanding, especially at the end when they fast forward to the present and Bennie The Jet is with the Dodgers and Smalls is the announcer. Man did they not look exactly like their younger selves.

 

The great baseball movies yet to be made:

1) A really good Satchel Paige/Josh Gibson biopic (although the Lou Gossett one was OK for its time).

2) "Veeck, as in Wreck: The Hustler's Handbook." You keep reading off and on that Bill Murray is set to star in a movie version, but Murray is now too old to play Veeck as a young guy in the minors, with the Indians and Browns, when he was at his craziest (Eddie Gaedel). Will Ferrell needs to lay off sports movies for a while, but I could see him doing a good job as Veeck.

3) A biopic on the 1880s version of Veeck, Chris Von Der Ahe of the St. Louis Browns, who started rival leagues, pioneered the sale of beer and hot dogs at baseball games, and built his ballpark as part of an amusement park.

4) "Miracle Braves": Self-explanatory.

5) "Prince Hal": A biopic on the most corrupted baseball player of all time, Hal Chase. Or maybe, a movie encompassing all the greed and corruption in baseball in the Teens (in addition to the 1919 series which everyone knows about, there have always been muttered rumors that the 1917 and 1918 series might have been fishy, too).

6) "Charlie O.": the crazy story of the early-70s Oakland A's -- a lot of interesting personalities on and off the field, and in the owner's box. Problem is, some of the central characters (Finley and Reggie Jackson) are pretty hard to build up much sympathy for (Finley especially). They'd have to focus on guys like Catfish Hunter, Joe Rudi or Campy Campaneris.

7) And yes, at some point, a legitimately good Ruth/Gehrig movie.

 

Love some of those ideas, Starman.

Don't think a good, serious Negro Leagues movie will ever be made, unless you get a Billy Crystal-with-61* type spearheading the entire project with one compelling vision of the story.

I think any Swinging A's movie would be just as hard to watch as the ESPN ones on Pete Rose or the Bronx Zoo. The '70s just can't be (or haven't been, anyway) reproduced well on film. Had to be there, I guess.

"Veeck as in Wreck" would be awesome, even if you don't have a name actor (although Ferrell could work) playing the title character. But if you can get somebody to carry the film like DiCaprio did in "The Aviator" ... damn.

"Miracle Braves" could be really good, too. Lot of movie-friendly stories from that season to be incorporated (like Mayor Curley storming the field to have Snodgrass ejected after he thumbed his nose at the fans on the field at Fenway).

 

I read at some point Spike Lee was interested in making a Negro Leagues film, but the entire topic of the Negro Leagues is touchy -- the former players are very proud of what they accomplished, but the very fact they were playing in the "negro leagues" to some extent validates baseball's system of apartheid.

I suppose a good movie could be made on the life story of Moses Fleetwood Walker, who was the first African-American player in the "major leagues" in 1884, who was also a graduate of Oberlin College, and after quitting baseball became a spokesman for black emigration back to Africa -- almost a 1910s version of Malcolm X.

If somebody were really motivated to do it, I suppose you could do a "Godfather II" dual-timeline type of movie following the careers of Walker and Jackie Robinson, 60 years apart.

Back to Veeck: Aside from Ferrell, who really is getting typecast in zany sports comedies, John C. Reilly and even Tom Hanks would be good in the part -- they bear decent facial resemblances to Veeck. (Plus with Ferrell, there would be the instant risk of the movie getting swamped in Will Ferrell Schtick -- fart jokes, etc etc).

Hanks of course would have to take a personal interest in the subject -- he's too big a star for a sports-bio movie to afford -- this wouldn't be a multi-megamillion-dollar grosser.

 

Re 5): Don't forget '14 and '29.

 

And '03, for that matter. Possibly '12, too.