Tyomoth

@Russ @Michael Trzinski Seriously, if I can get a handful of people to check this one out, I'll count it a win. It's fun.

@IndianaTwin I love every point you made here. I suspect, however, it's a bit too sentimental for many sports movie fans who thrive on adrenaline.

@Wedman13 There's nothing wrong with being a bit biased. I'm guilty of it too, here. Fun to see the old Metrodome scenes!

I've seen over 60 baseball movies and this one baffles me as much as any. I would score it, “Hit by pitch. Took first base, never advanced.” There's minimal baseball, less plot, and no characters I want to root for. Linklater pitched it as a "spiritual sequel" to "Dazed and Confused," and that tracks. Just meandering antics for a couple of hours with nothing to root for and no resolution. I just don't think Linklater's style is a fit for me.

@Frayed Knot I agree with some of your views here. Madonna was pretty much just a name for draw. "Jon Lovitz playing Jon Lovitz" is not wrong, but I enjoyed his role. I can't agree on Hanks. He did well with the part, though others could have done well, too.

Image courtesy of Copyright by Columbia Pictures and other relevant production studios and distributors. Intended for editorial use only. It's kind of shocking that it took until 1992 for someone to do a movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The fact that women not only had to keep American factories and stores running while the guys were off fighting WWII, but they had to save the American pastime, is a tale of heroes. But, not only did "A League of Their Own" bring the story of the AAGPBL to life, it did it right. Starting with Penny Marshall, one of the most acclaimed female movie directors, taking the driver's seat. First Innings: The movie opens with an elderly lady packing up some things, then looking at old photos, and eventually a very old catcher's mitt. This is the modern day, and she's supposed to go to some sort of reunion. So, right off the bat, you can tell this one is going to hang heavy on the nostalgia. Flash back to a women's fast-pitch softball game where sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller are playing. It's obvious very quickly that Dottie (played by Geena Davis) is taller, deemed more attractive, and a considerably better ball player. Kit (Lori Petty) suffers from a heaping helping of sibling envy. Then the fun starts. A very crude baseball scout (Jon Lovitz) comes to the dairy farm where they're working to offer Dottie a chance to play in a new all-girls baseball league. She's skeptical at first, but when it's obvious that Kit is desperate to play, she signs on as long as Kit gets a contract, too. Then you meet the team. Like most of these ragtag sports movies, you have a team with diverse talents and personalities. To point out just a few, the Rockford Peaches lineup card has: Mae Mordabito (Madonna) - A good-looking ex-stripper who loves the attention as much as the game, but she's good. Doris Murphy (Rosie O'Donnell) - Mae's rough-around-the-edges sidekick. A very good all-around player. Ellen Sue Gotlander - (Freddie Simpson) - The sweet, blonde bombshell who plays a mean shortstop. Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh) - The comically ugly second baseman who can flat out mash. Here's the catch. The team needs to play in short skirts, take etiquette lessons, and never be without makeup. To their dismay, it's as much a pageant as it is a baseball league. Oh, and their manager is a Hall of Fame caliber major leaguer, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), who's washed out of MLB and pretty much drunk all the time. Middle Innings: As the season starts, you start to see the girls bonding (and fighting) and Manager Dugan slipping into pathetic drunken behavior. Dottie sort of takes the helm as the player/manager whenever he's not functioning. But eventually, the team starts to play good ball, and he takes notice and starts doing his job. However, the league as a whole is suffering. The girls are asked to make it a bit more of a show, which frustrates them at first, but they'll do anything to stay on the field. They start making trick catches, blowing kisses, and even raffling off real kisses. It all works and they bring fans to the ballpark. Then, just as the Peaches are headed to the playoffs, things get interesting. The competitiveness between Dottie and Kit escalates, and the league owner declares his intention to shut it down once the war is over. The battle of the sisters leads to Kit getting traded from Rockford to Racine. In a particularly hard-hitting moment, just before their first playoff game, a telegram delivery guy comes into the locker room announcing that he has a "telegram for one of you ladies from the war department." Dugan opens it with the appropriate somberness and walks over to Betty "Spaghetti" Horn. Their left-fielder and pitcher just lost her husband. Final Out: Things jump forward a bit. The team is headed to the World Series, and Dottie is leaving the team because her husband has come home from the war. What? Say it ain't so, Dottie! Who are the Peaches facing in the World Series? None other than the Racine Belles. Of course, it goes to a Game 7 and... well, I won't spoil the ending for ya. All in all, Marshall does an admirable job with this film. Hanks is wonderful as Jimmy Dugan. He bounces seamlessly from drunken buffon to smart and conscientious manager to raving madman. But it's the relationship between Dottie and her sister, Kit, that carries the movie. Both Geena Davis and Lori Petty excel in their roles. On top of all that, the actual baseball action is pretty fun to watch, and there is plenty of it. Is it a top 5 baseball movie for me? No. Not for me. But "A League of Their Own" is in the top 10 and is just a really solid movie that does justice to the history it helps preserve. Let me know what you think in the comments! Run Time: 2 hr 08 minutes IMDB Score: 7.4/10 Scorecard: Triple down the line Best Line: Jimmy Dugan: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There's no crying! THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! (How could I NOT pick that?) Player of the Game: Hanks is great, but I think Geena Davis is the cleanup hitter here. She does well with her character, and she looks like she can really play. Bench Player: If there is a weak link in this one, I'd give it to Rosie O'Donnell. I've liked her in plenty of stuff, but here I thought her performance just came across as fake and awkward. View full article

Image courtesy of Copyright by Columbia Pictures and other relevant production studios and distributors. Intended for editorial use only. I'll never forget my first pro baseball game. It was May 15th, 1987, and I was at the Metrodome in Minneapolis with most of my sixth-grade class. I was already a huge Twins fan, and Kirby Puckett was far and away my favorite player. At this point, we had no idea what that season had in store for us. We were just excited to be inside the Metrodome watching Señor Smoke, Juan Berenguer, take the mound against the Boston Red Sox. Long story short, or at least less long, the game was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning when Kirby stepped up to the plate and took Bruce Hurst deep for a 2-run shot. We lost our minds. The pure joy and adrenaline of that moment haven't been matched at a game since. Why? I've seen walk-offs, but I'm not a kid anymore. First Pitch "Little Big League" opens with a Little League game. When an odd situation occurs where three kids end up at the same base, neither the coaches nor the ump knows the right call. So, naturally, they turn to one of the kids -- Bill Heywood (played by Luke Edwards). He explains that the lead runner gets the base and the other two are out, noting that "the same thing happened to the Brooklyn Dodgers in a game in 1926." Okay, so we immediately know that the kid is a walking baseball encyclopedia. Got it. Then, we learn that his grandfather, played by Jason Robards, owns the Minnesota Twins, and Billy gets to go to games and visit the clubhouse with him. Some of the players know him. It's a good life for a kid. Then, grandpa dies. and leaves the team to Billy. How is a kid going to run an MLB team? The Mid Innings Things don't start out well for Billy. The team's manager is a hard-nosed, old-school guy who doesn't like the idea of working for a kid. In short order, Billy ends up firing him, only to discover that no other managers want the job either. So, what's a kid to do but take the job himself? It's a bumpy beginning for him, and life on the road is a bit much for a kid. To make matters worse, his first baseman (and friend), Lou Collins, played by Timothy Busfield (also in Field of Dreams), is trying to woo Billy's mom. The team ends up with a decent season and ties with the Seattle Mariners for a Wild Card spot, setting up a "Game 163." The Last Inning Of course, that last game is a nail-biter that goes to extra innings. And, as if that's not enough, Billy needs to decide whether or not to give Lou his blessing to marry his mother. Yeah, that needs to happen during the game, right? I won't spoil the ending as far as the team's season goes, but when it's all over, Billy steps down as manager and gets back to being a kid again. But he's helped his players learn to have fun playing baseball again, and that's a pretty good deal. The plot for "Little Big League" is clearly meant for kids, and that's okay. It's a kids' movie. But overall, as a baseball movie, it's still kind of fun. There are a lot of cameos from big-name MLB players from the early '90s, including Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, and about a dozen more. Can you spot them all? "Little Big League" doesn't make my top 10 and maybe not even my top 20, but it's good innocent fun. Grab a hot dog, some popcorn, and give it a shot. Run Time: 1 hr 59 minutes IMDB Score: 6.2/10 Scorecard: Sneaky double Best Line: “Baseball is a kid’s game...grown-ups only screw it up” (Bob Lemon as quoted by Billy Heywood) Player of the Game: Edwards does a nice job as Billy Heywood. It would have been easy for this to get too cheesy and the character to come across as annoying, but he plays it well. Fun Fact: Ashley Crow, who plays Billy's mother, is the real-life mother to Pete Crow-Armstrong, the Gold Glove/All-Star centerfielder for the Chicago Cubs. View full article

Image courtesy of Copyright by production studio and/or distributor. Intended for editorial use only. How about a sports movie where a bunch of misfits are put together on one team, and they somehow come together to win it all? *Yawn!* We've seen that already at least a dozen times. What if they don't band together for the love of the game or each other, but out of pure spite for their money-grubbing boss? Now you have something. Major League! Major League came out in 1989, which is right in the golden era of baseball movies. It doesn't hang its hat on nostalgia or pure love of baseball, but on laughs, and it crushes it. There are so many great one-liners in this movie that I call it the Caddyshack of baseball. First Inning: The plot for Major League is pretty simple. The owner of the Cleveland Indians (today's Guardians) dies, and his "Vegas beauty" of a young wife, Rachel Phelps, played by Margaret Whitton, inherits the team. She isn't a Cleveland kind of gal, so she tries to put together the worst team imaginable to drive attendance down to the point where she can move the team to Miami. Here's the lineup they introduce us to: Pedro Cerrano (played by Dennis Haysbert) - A power-hitting outfielder from Cuba who practices Voodoo and can't hit a curveball. He's big, he's tough, and he's flawed. Jake Taylor (played by Tom Berenger) - A former star catcher with bad knees but a good head for the game. Willie Mays Hayes (played by Wesley Snipes) - A dude no one has heard of who shows up and can run like the wind. A base stealer that can't really hit, but can talk a big game. Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn (played by Charlie Sheen) - A fireball-throwing pitcher straight out of the California penal league. The bad boy of the team. He has a bit of trouble with his control. Eddie Harris (played by Chelcie Ross) - The aging junkball pitcher who will put anything, including snot or KY, on the ball to get an edge. Big fan of Jesus, but not Cerrano. Roger Dorn (played by Corbin Bernsen) - A big-contract third baseman who cares more about his paycheck and lifestyle than the game or the team. The last thing he wants to do is get hurt. Lou Brown (played by James Gammon) - A first-time manager who gave up his job selling tires to take the helm, but he had to think about it for a while. Middle Innings: Once these guys get wind of their owner's plan, they grind it out and start winning just to prove her wrong and aggravate her. Maybe the current Twins team should watch this one. Just sayin'. On the field, the baseball is fairly good. Harris, the junk-baller, doesn't look super-legit, but it's good enough. Berenger looks pretty good throwing, Haysbert looks like he could play for real, and Charlie Sheen was a stud high-school pitcher and shortstop who looks legit on the mound. Reports say Snipes had zero baseball skills beyond running fast and sliding, so they had to do some fancy editing whenever he had to catch or throw the ball. It works well enough that I never questioned it. But, seriously, we're not here for the baseball. Last Out: The build-up to a playoff chance is fun, and there are plenty of funny moments both on and off the field. They end up in a winner-take-all playoff game against, of course, the New York Yankees. Of course, they win in dramatic fashion. What did they do in the playoffs? We'll never know. When people ask the question, "What's your favorite baseball movie?" many, many people immediately say Major League, and for good reason. It is funny as hell while sneaking in one of the more exhilarating moments in baseball movie history, If you don't get tingles when they call in Ricky Vaughn to face his nemesis on the Yankees and he comes out of the bullpen while the crowd roars along to "Wild Thing" (The Troggs, not Tone Loc), you're a little dead inside. It's a great moment that made kids in 1989 immediately think, "What would my entrance song be?" For the record, mine would be "Blood of Heroes" by Megadeth. The cast of "Major League" is fantastic. I'm not sure how they could have done better at just about any of the spots. They're all likable, funny, and disturbing in their own way. Plus, Rene Russo as Jake Taylor's love interest and Stacy Carroll as Susan Dorn fit right in. Gammon, as manager Lou Brown, steals a few scenes in an understated way. In fact, he's one of the best characters on the screen. But, as if this wasn't all the makings for a great baseball comedy, they brought in a ringer. In the radio booth for the Cleveland Indians is Harry Doyle, played by none other than Mr. Bob Uecker... and it might be the best thing he ever did in his legendary career (sorry Brewers fans). Throughout the movie, he fires one-liners as he calls the game that are absolutely epic. Who hasn't watched a wild pitch and said, "Juuusst a bit outside!" All in all, Major League is a baseball classic that keeps you laughing and has enough baseball legitimacy to work. It's definitely in my top five. Run Time: 1 hr 47 min IMDB Score: 7.2/10 Scorecard: Homerun to the upper deck! Best Line: Yikes. There are so many! My personal favorite is when Hayes makes a showboating basket catch and returns to the dugout, the manager greets him at the step and says, "Nice catch, Hayes. Don't ever f#$%ing do it again!" What are some of your favorite lines from Major League? View full article

Image courtesy of © Sony Pictures. Used for editorial purposes. What makes a great baseball movie? Star power never hurts. A team of kids that rallies around a common cause? Sure. We've loved that before, right? Solid on-field play? Definitely a plus. Based on a true story? I'll be honest, I've never cared too much about that part, but it can lend a bit of weight to a story. Think "Moneyball" or "Eight Men Out." But, even if you put all of that together, it's not a magic recipe for a great baseball movie. The 2024 Netflix release "You Gotta Believe" has all of these things, yet does it have what it takes to make us jump up from our seats and cheer for the home team? Let's find out. First Inning: The opening scene is a Little League baseball game, and it's immediately evident that our team in this movie is very, very... not good. Meet "The Westside All-Stars," a hapless baseball team coached by Jon Kelly, a mostly disinterested lawyer (played by Greg Kinnear). Assistant Coach Bobby Ratliff (Luke Wilson) is much more engaged, but struggles as second in command. A confrontational meeting on the mound that seemed to include the whole team, but neither coach, quickly informs us that one kid is scared of the ball, the pitcher is just trying to hit the strike zone, and one kid is in love with his teammate's older sister. The All-Stars are down 9-0. But then it happens. One kid gets a hit, and there's hope! Nope. Next kid gets out. Game over. Season over. In a pivotal moment, Coach Kelly refers to his "star player" when talking to Rivera. That kid looks him in the eye and says, "Star player? You've got plenty of good players, you just don't know how to coach 'em, coach." And then it happens. Coach Kelly looks up, and there is Hamilton "Ham" Porter waiting for him. Sorry, it's actually the league president, Klifford Young (played by none other than Patrick Renna). He wants Kelly to manage the All-Stars in a tournament for the Little League World Series. Why? They just need to enter a team to keep the league sponsors, and the better teams aren't interested. Kelly's a hard no. That is, until Coach Ratliff is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he flip-flops to give Coach Ratliff a reason to get out of bed each day. Middle Innings: First, they work on selling the team on the idea. Then, it's time to get them into shape. Of course, one of the kids has a dad who was a Master Sergeant. Cue the ridiculous conditioning montage. Next, they start paying attention to the kids and why they're not performing well in their positions. Surprise, surprise... they start to redefine their individual roles on the team, play to their personal strengths, and do pretty well. The actual baseball in the movie is pretty solid for a young group. Some of the concepts are a bit unrealistic. One kid can't catch because he's afraid of the ball. What do they do? Move him from first base to catcher, where he feels protected by all the gear. Really? Really. One kid starts hitting better when he takes off his glasses. I didn't get that one at all. When the team starts to do well in the tourney, the fast-paced baseball action looks very good if you can get past the bizarre editing. More on that in a bit. The team enters the tourney, and they're a whole different team than they were a couple of weeks ago. As the team starts to advance, it becomes a song montage, which is pretty common. However, the song they chose is "Rawhide." Not only that, as the screen flips and twitches to fast edited baseball play, you see players and coaches mouthing the words to the song and making the whip action with their hands. My honest reaction was, ***? What is happening right now?. It is so odd. Some might love it, but I thought it felt really out of place in this movie and just weird overall. Perhaps the oddest scene in a baseball movie I've witnessed (and I've watched about 60 baseball movies). The Final Out: It's a remarkable run, based on a true story. As they get better, Coach Ratliff gets worse. The cancer is taking its toll. But they use that as a motivator to crystallize into a team with a purpose. Do they win it all? You'll have to watch it to find out. For me, "You Gotta Believe" takes a pretty remarkable true story and turns it into something mostly generic, with a touch of absurdity. It's watchable but pretty forgettable in a Hallmark-meets "after-school special" sort of way. If you like "feel-good" movies, this could be your jam. Put it on when you have some light work to do and check it off your list. (We all keep baseball movie lists, right?) It's a made-for-Netflix movie, so that's where you can find it. I really want to know. If you saw this one and loved it, what did I miss? Run Time: 1 hr 44 min IMDB Score: 5.9/10 Scorecard: Squib single Best Line: Coach: "Welcome to Williamsport, boys!" Player: "Are you sure those are boys? That guy has a mustache?" (We all played against that kid as Little Leaguers, didn't we?) Player of the Game: If I had to pick, I guess Luke Wilson was as close to a stand-out as I could find in this one. View full article

Image courtesy of Copyright by production studio and/or distributor. Intended for editorial use only. Today's baseball fan is no stranger to controversies. Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens have been kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame because of PEDs. The Astros were whacking a garbage can to tip pitches in the playoffs. Angel Hernandez was professionally employed as an MLB umpire! We've seen some sketchy stuff, to be sure. But none of it comes remotely close to members of a team purposely trying to throw World Series games as the 1919 White Sox, dubbed "The Black Sox," did in their World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. It's scandalous and completely unforgivable. Or is it? The 1988 film "Eight Men Out" portrays the Black Sox and tries to show you all the angles so you can decide who's to blame. It's a baseball movie with plenty of on-the-field action and drama both inside and outside of the lines. First Pitch: I don't know how they could have done better with the opening 25 minutes of this film. Right off the bat, you get a wonderful sense of time. You hear the music of the era. The clothing is on point, and even the language just feels right. Sports writer Ring Lardner, "If Cicotte's arm holds up, it'll be murder!" But what I really like about this opening is the four distinct points of view. You get to know some of the players. Like most teams, the Sox have some grizzled vets and some younger, more enthusiastic players. But they're good. Really good. Then you meet the owner, Charles Comiskey (played by Clifton James). He's loud. He brags about his team, but he's cheap. He sends some bottles of bubbly down to the clubhouse after they win the pennant. When Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) asks about a promised bonus if they "took the flag," Comiskey's lackey says, "This is your bonus." What's more, the bubbly is flat. (I couldn't help but think of Clark Griswold's "Jelly of the Month" Club!) The third point of view is that of the fans, in particular, a pair of young boys who absolutely idolize their White Sox players. They've got these guys on a pedestal so high, they're infallible. The fourth point of view is that of the sports writers. They're watching it all unfold and trying to make sense of what they're seeing in real time. When the idea of tossing the series comes up, some players are interested, and some aren't. Cicotte is the essential piece, and there's another great moment when Comiskey tells him he won't get his 30-win bonus because he only won 29 games. Comiskey had the manager sit him for two weeks to "rest up for the series." That's a clear tipping point that makes you think, "Okay, I may have said to heck with it, too, at that point." Middle Innings: This part slows down a bit as the gamblers are figuring out the money portion of it all, as Chick Gandil and Swede Risberg try to get as many players in on the fix as possible. As the series starts, you can see a divide between the players who are trying to toss the game and others, like 3rd baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack), 2nd baseman Eddie Collins (Bill Irwin), and catcher Ray Schalk (Gordon Clapp), who are trying their best to win it. And then there's "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney). He kind of gets suckered into it all, but doesn't really want to do it. He plays great, but still gets paid. Meanwhile, manager, Kid Gleason (John Mahoney), is going nuts trying to hold it all together. All the while, the sports writers are starting to get a whiff of something stinky and are trying to figure out who's on the level and who isn't. It's almost comical to watch the grumpy, hard-nosed Schalk getting frustrated as things develop. There's a great little scene where Buck Weaver talks to some kids, and when some kids say the Sox are "laying down," some others stand up for them. They still believe. As they're about to start Game 7, some of the players who were in are now ready to win it because they haven't been getting paid what they were promised. It's all up to Cicotte. (Fun fact: The 1919 World Series was one of just four [1903, 1919, 1920, and 1921] to use a best-of-nine format, meaning the winning team needed to collect five wins.) Last Inning: The game goes on. The gamblers are tense. Eddie Cicotte's pitching is great. The Sox win. Now, it's up to Lefty Williams, who wasn't enthusiastic about the venture from the start. Before the game starts, you see everyone there. You see wives, gamblers, the kids, and Comiskey. And, from first pitch, Lefty's tossing batting practice. After the Sox lose the series, it shifts to the writers as they try to nail down just who was in on the fix. Meanwhile, those kids are trying to get people to sign petitions to "stop the lies!" They still believe. The movie shifts to the examination and eventual trial of the players involved. It also shows that the creation of the first commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, brought in a pillar of morality to clean it all up. From there, it all unravels quickly. Of course, we get that essential moment when the kids look at Shoeless Joe and ask, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" All in all, "Eight Men Out" is an exceptional baseball movie. The casting and acting are terrific. The story is there, and it's compelling with no real subplots to speak of. There are players who are villains, players who are victims, and a few who are stuck somewhere in between. The owner, Comiskey, who is the clear villain in the beginning of the movie, is torn down, but in a way that makes you almost sympathize with him. Run Time: 1 hr 59 min IMDB Score: 7.2/10 Scorecard: Majestic homerun to the second deck. Player of the Game: This is tough. Cusack and D.B. Sweeney shine. Mahoney is fantastic as Kid Gleason. But my vote goes to David Strathairn as Eddie Cicotte. He's conflicted, frustrated, and it shows throughout the film. Benchwarmer: The gamblers overall. I think we spent just a tad too much time with them, trying to understand their world. Best line: "Joe! Say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so." When the kids finally have to face reality, it's heart-wrenching. View full article