Movie Night

  Last week a friend of mine wrote a blog with a starting line up of fictional baseball characters, naturally he did a horrible job and I was gonna write up my own list.  I realize that if I did that it would just be stealing his idea.  Well then I started thinking what could I do with movies so I decided to rank my top baseball movies, the list was gonna be 10 but I realized their are a lot of good baseball movies, so it expanded to 15.  Baseball movies are the best sports movies, football movies tend to look fake, and have guys you can't believe playing positions, Scott Caan is a midget and played WR in Varsity Blues, Adam Sandler is neither a QB nor a psycopath that can play LB.  Hockey movies were ruined by the Mighty Ducks b/c nobody can live up to them, and I think Slapshot is the only other fictional hockey movie worth watching.  Basketball movies are ok, but with a gem like Hoosiers out there why watch another one?  Baseball is different probably b/c anyone can play, if you look athletic you can fool me into thinking you can play baseball, you never watch a baseball movie and go oh that guy can't play.  So here we go, starting at number 15 counting down to 1, FYI there might be a few spoiler alerts so if there is a movie you haven't seen I suggest you watch it.

15. The Rookie, the list has fiction and non-fiction movies on it, I'll start with a based on a true story movie.  Dennis Quad plays a high school baseball coach who was drafted in his younger years, before he blew out his shoulder.  His team finds out he has talent and makes him a deal they make the playoffs he tries out for the pro's again at age 35, of course their a basement dweller but they rise up, make the playoffs and he tries out with the Rays.  Gets signed goes threw the minors, wants to quit, gets called up in September, pitches in a Major League Game.  I've never watched the whole movie all the way through but it's a good inspirational story and has some lessons in it.

14. Bad News Bears, I'm lumping both the 1976 and 2005 version together here.  Simple plot, a coach who's made poor decisions gets the crappy kids baseball team.  It's a rag-tag bunch with no talent, the coach recruits a girl pitcher and rebel athletic kid and hilarity ensues.  I'm not a huge fan of either movie but I know a lot of people love it.  I think Walter Matthau was way better than Billy Bob Thorton, but who am I to judge.

13. Cobb, Cobb is about Ty Cobb the great baseball player of the early 1900's.  Robert Wuhl plays a writer who goes and sees an older dyeing Cobb, played by Tommy Lee Jones, to write an autobiography.  Well, Cobb was a racist, drunk, and abusvive ass but he wants his the book to tell about what a great guy he is, and basically have it be full of lies.  The 2 travel together with Cobb being an ass the whole time, it's a great movie and I think is shows what Ty Cobb really was a hard-nosed prick who played the game hard.

12. The Scout, A scout with the Yankees, played by Albert Brooks, makes a bad signing when his sure fire ends up throwing up all over the mound.  His punishment is he gets sent to scout the Mexican Leagues where he finds the gem of Steve Nebraska, played by Brendan Frasier, of course though there are bumps along the rode of getting Nebraska to the pro's.  It's a pretty funny movie and Frasier playes the crazy guy pretty well, it also has a ton of cameo's from pro's and media types.

11. Mr. Baseball, Tom Selleck's mustache stars in this amazing movie about and aging star who gets traded to a team in Japan.  He at first clashes with the culture thinking he's a big shot, but eventually he meshes with his manager and teammates.  The movie culminates when Selleck's mustache is on the verge of breaking his own managers record of home runs in consecutive games, but the oppossing team refuses to pitch to him and he eventually hits the home run but steps on the plate in the process, then at the end of the game with bases loaded and down a run the mustache lays down a bunt.  I liked this movie when I was a kid, haven't seen it in a while but it's worth a watch if it's on Netflix or HBO sometime, I mean Tom Selleck's mustache is in it, and it's from the 90's so the mustache was glorious.

10. Hardball, Keanu Reeves stars in this masterpiece.  Tell me if you've heard this story before, guy screws up, guy coaches inner-city kids team, he convinces them they can win, they win, a tragedy happens, they go onto win championship.  Yeah I know it's corny but this movie was full of great characters, G-Baby the team manager who dies and the kid who listens to Biggie while pitching, which leads to a great scene.  Pretty good movie if you get over the cornyness of the plot.

9. The Natural, Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a great baseball player who had a lot of shit happen to him.  Well Hobbs makes it to the pro's at the age of 35, he helps turn around his team.  He has this bat he made from a tree that was struck by lighting when he was a kid, well he uses that bat to crush the ball, but in the climax of the movie he breaks that bat, but the batboy brings him a new handmade bat they made together and in a storm Hobbs hits a homer that hits a light station and causes sparks to fall down onto the field while he rounds the bases.  Been a while since I've seen the Natural but it's a good movie with a ton of people in it.

8. The Fan, Robert De Niro plays an obsessed fan of the San Francisco Giants who just signed Bobby Rayburn, (Wesley Snipes) away from the Braves.  De Niro calls sports radio all the time, takes his kid to all the games, and basically a nut case.  Well, Rayburn doesn't live up to the hype to his contract at first and the fan base gets upset, De Niro is the only guy sticking up for Rayburn, and feels it's his job to get him out of his slump.  Well he takes strides to help Rayburn out, including killing the player on the team with "Rayburn's" number.  When he feels like he isn't thanked properly De Niro goes crazy and a ton of shit happens.  I haven't seen this movie in 15 years but it was one of my favorites, Rayburn was said to based on Barry Bonds a little bit, but it was merely coincidental.  This is psycothriller as well a baseball movie.

7. Little Big League, maybe the baseball movie I've watched the 2nd most ever.  Billy Haywood is a kid who inherits the the Minnesota Twins from his grandfather after his death.  Billy is a baseball genius knows stats, situations, line-ups, basically anything baseball the kid knows, he fires the teams manager and when nobody wants to work for a kid he decides hiring himself seems like a good idea.  Well he turns the bunch of losers into winners by reminding them the game is fun, (like you've never heard that story before) but of course Billy starts getting too serious and forgets how fun the game is.  The cast is full of characters, and cameo's from players and media types alike.  I love this movie and want to watch it right now, it has some of the best lines and is just funny.  I'll leave with you with this from the movie, a cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays two days and leaves on Friday, how did he do it?

6. Field of Dreams, probably the movie closest to me, literally I live 3 miles from the field.  Kevin Costner plays a broke farmer who builds a baseball field in his corn field, b/c he hears a voice telling him "if you build it, he will come."  Well he does and more than just he comes, a lot of players come including Shoeless Joe Jackson of the 1919 Black Sox.  Eventually the "he" is revealed as Costners dad and they have "a catch" on the field, something that tugs at all fathers and sons heartstrings.  The movie has a ton more to it, but I don't want to get into it too much, it's a lot of fantasy and super-natural stuff going on all at once.  Great movie and if you haven't seen it watch it and if you want to visit the field let me know we'll go have a catch sometime.

5. Bull Durham, back-to-back Kevin Costner movies, this time Costner plays Crash Davis a career minor league catcher who's job is too get young hot shot pitcher Nuke LaLoosh, (Tim Robbins), to the pro's.  Susan Sarandon plays the town slut, who's main goal is to sleep with guys on their way to the big's, she romance LaLoosh but her and Crash keep butting heads before eventually falling for each other.  LaLoosh does make the big's and Crash bcomes the Home Run king of the minors. The movie is full of great lines and scenes.  Let me not forget the Durham Bull Home Run Celebration that is very 80's and very minor leagues.  Great movie and #1 on Rotten Tomatoes for Sports movies.  Also where Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins fell in love in real life so it's got that going for it.

4. A League of Their Own, the movie about girls playing baseball.  This wouldn't be on the top of this list unless Tom Hanks was in it, he killed it in this movie and is 1 of my 3 favorite Tom Hanks performances.  The scene where he's drunk in the dugout was just awesome.  The female cast was awesome and each girl played their parts great.  I love this movie if you haven't seen it, shame on you go watch it, come back and tell me you didn't like it then we'll no longer be friends.

3. 61*, Billy Crystal directed this HBO movie about Micky Mantle and Roger Maris' 1961 season when they as teammates chased Babe Ruth's single-season home run record.  This is an excellent look into the lives of the 2 men, the "true" Yankee Mantle who everyone loved, and the "outsider" Maris who was from the midwest, didn't embrace New York or the media.  Barry Pepper played Roger Maris and did a great job of doing so, they made the uniforms look perfect to the era.  Great great baseball movie and a true eye opener to how that season shook down.

2. The Sandlot, of all the "kids" baseball movies this is the best.  A group of 8 kids who get together everyday and play baseball need a recruit so they get the new kid, Scott Smalls, who has no talent, is very naive, and frankly doesn't know how to be a kid.  Well between challenging the local little league team, chewing tobacco, and other hijinks the kids face their greatest advasary in the Beast, a junkyard dog behind a fence that keeps all their home run balls.  They normally let them go, but Smalls hits his stepdad's Babe Ruth autographed ball over the fence.  The movie is full of characters, Bennie the Jet, Yeah-Yeah, Timmy and Tommy Timmons, Squints, Ham Porter, Kenny DeNunez, and Bertam Weeks.  Awesome lines throughout the movie, just go watch it, again.

1. Major League, I have to include the whold franchise here, even though the 1st Major League is the best, the 2nd one does belong somewhere on this list, and back to the minors does have some funny spots.  The movie is based around a bunch of losers who rally together and go onto win their division.  With characters like Willie Mayes Hayes, Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, Jake Taylor, Roger Dorn, and Pedro Cerrano.  Bob Uecker plays the greatest baseball announcer ever in Harry Doyle and has about 15 repeatable lines.  Just an awesome set of movies, especially the first 2, with line after line after line you can repeat forever.  This is probably my 2nd favorite movie ever, just awesome.

Well that's my list I know I didn't put a few movies on there, Rookie of the Year and Angels in the Outfield both are immediate ones I think of but I didn't really care for either movie so there's that.  I suggest seeing every movie on the list, I know just writing about them makes me want to watch The Fan and The Sandlot right now.  I might write something up tomorrow, for my regular post, in the meantime, follow me on twiter @derekbredeson.