What's the best baseball movie?

[Cactus Jack]

Bull Durham? Bang the Drum Slowly? The Lou Gehrig Story? Field of Dreams? The Bad News Bears? Something else?
Field of Dreams gets my vote. Yes, it's kind of pretentious, and a little slow, but man, when Moonlight Graham has to walk across the foul line and become old, Doc Graham again (giving up his dream all over again), I get all teary.
Plus it's got James Earl Jones. Who makes any movie he's in cool just with his voice.

[Scylla]

_The Natural_

No contest.

[Spoke]

Eight Men Out

[Cactus Jack]

Oh shoot. I forgot about The Natural.
Still. I like "Field of Dreams" better. Why? Well, there's also the line: "Hey Dad. You wanna have a game of catch?"
That's what baseball's about. Not crushing a fastball into the lights and exploding the entire grid. Baseball's quiet. The Natural is about pyrotechnics. Spectacle.
Still a close second.

[Peter North]

I'd go with Scylla, "The Natural" followed by "Bull Durham"

[PatrickM]

Bull Durham, just for the conversations on the pitchers mound.

As an Indians fan who grew up with the lousy Tribe teams of the 70's and 80's, my sentimental favorite is "Major League", which came out in 1989 and which illustrated what was believed to be impossible, namely, the Indians actually winning something.

[Cactus Jack]

The thing about Bull Durham is that it's got that googly eyed woman in it -- darn, what's her name? -- the one from Thelma and Louise. Her character's annoying and, I think, kind of gross-looking.

[Cactus Jack]

Susan Sarandon.

[GLWasteful]

1. The Natural
2. Eight Men Out
3. Bull Durham

At least, those are my favorites.

On a tangential note: a friend and I were talking about the fact that while we run hot and cold about baseball, as a sport, we're crazy about movies that involve baseball.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[rackensack]

I'm still partial to Bull Durham, perhaps because I'm so fond of minor league baseball, and Ron Shelton, as a former minor leaguer himself, got the tone of the minors exactly right. But I also think it's because it's more about baseball than most baseball movies. It's not about a myth transposed onto the game, or about the pain and joy of any arbitrary athlete dying young, or about anything other than baseball, love, and love of baseball.

Mental exercise: transpose each of the nominees in this thread onto another sport. Is anything essential lost? If not, it doesn't seem to qualify as the best baseball movie. For example, though I haven't seen the movie I'm very fond of Mark Harris' novel Bang the Drum Slowly, but you could write make Henry "Author" Wiggin and Bruce Pearson football players without extreme violence to the story. I don't think you can say the same thing about Bull Durham or Field of Dreams.

Having just watched Bull Durham again the other night, I will say that the character of Annie Savoy did bother me more than in previous viewings, but not so much as to interfere with enjoying the film.

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"Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." --Satchel Paige

[zev_steinhardt]

Well, I would have to say Field of Dreams and the Natural (tie) do it for me. However, two films that get special mention:

1) Whenever I need a laugh, I just have to watch the baseball scenes from Naked Gun.

2) Whenever I want total mindless, simple entertainment, I like It Happens Every Spring.

Zev Steinhardt

[Dangerosa]

My husband is a huge baseball fan. Although he likes Field of Dreams as a movie, he says it isn't a good baseball movie because the important parts of the movie don't happen during a game. His vote goes to Major League, with A League of Their Own being a close second.

His other requirement for a good baseball movie - they have to get the rules right.

Personally, I'm a Bull Durham kind of girl. We live in the Twin Cities, and are Saints fans, so it takes on a whole new meaning. (Who are you going to follow in the Twin Cities - the Twins?)

Haven't seen The Sandlot, but I'd have expected someone to give it a vote by now. Its supposed to be a great baseball movie.

[Nixon]

While I love "Field of Dreams", one thing bothered me.

Where are the brothers? What, in heaven (or Iowa) the black players still have a separate league?

BTW, blacks were part of professional baseball from the Civil War until the mid-1880s when racist stars - particularly Adrian "Cap" Anson lobbied (by threatening boycotts) to ban them.

[kknick34]

The best baseball movies in no particular order:

Field of Dreams
Pride of the Yankees
Major League
Bull Durham
The Natural
Bad News Bears
Bang the Drum Slowly
Sandlot
Eight Men Out

The Worst:
Babe Ruth Story (Both of them sucked one starred John Goodman and the starred William Bendix)
Bad News Bears sequals
Major League II

[zev_steinhardt]

Originally posted by Dangerosa:

His other requirement for a good baseball movie - they have to get the rules right.
.


Agreed. I remember the scene in "Rookie of the Year" when the kid (a baseball "expert") tries to pull off the hidden ball play. (For those who don't know, it's where a fielder has the ball instead of the pitcher. When the runner takes a lead -- GOTCHA!). The reason this play is rarely done is because the pitcher is not allowed to stand on the mound without the ball. So, most runners know to stay on the bag until the pitcher is ready to pitch. However, in the movie, the kid is standing on the mound and the first baseman has the ball. And when he's tagged, the runner on first is called out.

What makes this more frustrating is that in the credits Tim Stoddard (a former major leaguer) is listed as an advisor. He should have known about the rule.

Zev Steinhardt

[Cactus Jack]

Hey Nixon.
I agree. I wondered about the brothers, myself. There's more territory to be mined with someone like Josh Gibson or Satchel Paige, I think, than Shoeless Joe. Certainly, they have more of a right to come back and play on the field than any of those other guys on the White Sox who DID throw the world series. Why do they get a chance to come back and play and Josh Gibson doesn't? And Satchel Paige never got a chance in the majors till he was way past his prime (Page still did pretty well, from what I understand, even if his arm was all but played out.)
They could at least have put them in the background and have Moonlight Graham point them out, like he does with Gil Hodges and Smokin' Joe Wood.

[Spoke]

Eight Men Out is still my favorite.

Field of Dreams is a good flick, but it's not really "about" baseball. Baseball is just a vehicle used to present the themes of the movie.

My main gripe with Field of Dreams was casting Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson. Come on. Shoeless Joe was a cracker from South Carolina, not some fast-talking northerner, fer cryin' out loud.

[tracer]

What, didn't anybody here see A League of Their Own ?

[Spoke]

Oh yeah, and Shoeless Joe and Ty Cobb were friends, so it's kind of hard to imagine Shoeless Joe making that crack about not being able to stand the son-of-a-bitch.

[cleosia]

My two favorites, going back to when the world was in B&W, were Rhubarb and Angels in the Outfield (NOT that piece of crap Disney put out a few years ago. The original that the Disney movie was supposedly based on.

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Bitch by Birth

[Munch]

Originally posted by spoke-:

Field of Dreams is a good flick, but it's not really "about" baseball. Baseball is just a vehicle used to present the themes of the movie.

Its most definitely about baseball. James Earl Jones' quote near the end about baseball being the one constant in our history rings true. Ray Kinsella didn't know his father. All they had in common was baseball. All Ray and I have in common is baseball. All Ray and Terence Mann (Jones) have in common is baseball (seeing a theme?). So while an argument can still be made that the movie isn't 'about' baseball, its not just the vehicle for the theme of the movie. It IS the theme.



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I ask not what you can do for me, but what you can do for me right now.

[sqweels]

My favorite baseball movie is The Warriors.

[Zion]

Someone mentioned the Sandlot, but that really isn't a "baseball" movie. It's more about the wild imaginations, and misadventures of a group of friends. It's a great flick (it's on my "Best Movies" list), but one that can't be compared to Bull Durham, or Field of Dreams.

Adam

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Not a newbie...formerly ARG220

[Milossarian]

1. The Natural (one of my all-time favorites of any genre)
2. Bull Durham
3. A League of Their Own

Field of Dreams didn't affect me as strongly.

My favorite scene from The Natural: The manager (played by Wilfred Brimley) thinks there's no way Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) can play in the decisive one-game playoff to decide the pennant. (If the Knights lose, Brimley has to give up the team to the evil judge.) Brimley is in the clubhouse prior to the game, lamenting how he should have been a farmer. Hobbs sneaks in behind him, starts talking about living on a farm.

Manager: My Dad always wanted me to be a farmer.

Hobbs: My Dad wanted me to be a baseball player.

Manager: Well, you're better than anyone I ever had. And you're the best goddam hitter I ever saw. Suit up.

Get chills just writing it.

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"We are here for this -- to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out." Primo Levi

[Cactus Jack]

Hey, spoke.

I don't understand why Shoeless Joe can't be friends with Ty Cobb just because he called Cobb a sonofabitch. Also, I read Al Stump's biography of Cobb, and if I remember right (I don't have the book handy) it seemed more like he admired Shoeless Joe's playing ability. They didn't really hang or anything.

Cobb didn't have ANY friends. He did help some ballplayers who were down on their luck after he retired, but it was more out of respect for their ability than friendship. He hated everyone and they all hated him and he liked it that way.

Even if they WERE friends in real life, that doesn't preclude him from calling him an SOB and not inviting him to play.

What any of that really has to do with Field of Dreams, I ain't sure.

And wasn't Ray Liotta a nobody before Field of Dreams? I'd never seen him before that, and didn't realize it was the same guy from Goodfellas until just recently.

[ThisYearsGirl]

The Natural, with Damn Yankees in a close second.

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"I need the biggest seed bell you have. . . no, that's too big."--Hans Moleman

[tracer]

Okay, I'll admit it. I liked Little Big League. Even though it was nothing more than Rookie of the Year with a mental superpower replacing a physical one.

[Bucky]

I would vote for "The Natural" first--baseball as myth, evocative as hell, and an improvement on the book. I used to give friends in speech and debate little lighting stickers in homage to the film (and everyone who had one did very well at the national tournament--coincidence?).

"Field of Dreams" is also terrific, although the book would have been hard to really transplant completely. The brothers are out in the corn-field, waiting for James Earl Jones' character (Terrence Mann?) to come and play with them; meanwhile, they've got Cobb sitting on the bench just to piss him off.

"Bull Durham"--fun, full of baseball lore and feeling.

"Bang the Drum Slowly" DOES have to be a baseball movie. A star pitcher can often name his own catcher; this doensn't happen in other sports.

"Eight Men OUt" rocks, partly because the first line is "Hey, Bucky!"

"Major League" is fun but not very plausible (read IMPOSSIBLE situation at the end where Berneger's character is hitting second). The sequel blows.

Most baseball bios suck.

Can anyone name three movies from/about any other sport (with the possible exception of boxing) as good as these?

Bucky

[Anti Pro]

<<<<My two favorites, going back to when the world was in B&W, were Rhubarb and Angels in the Outfield (NOT that piece of crap Disney put out a few years ago. The original that the Disney movie was supposedly based on.>>>

It's always nice to hear when someone else appreciates the original movie, rather than the remake, cleosia! My favorite part in 'Angels' is when the manager (Paul Douglas) hears from the angel, that his older pitcher will soon die, and decides to have him pitch 'the big game' over the doubts of the reporters.

'League of Their Own'
'The Natural' are the runners up after 'Angels in the Backfield' (b&w)

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"Muck should replace 'suck'. For 'muck' is yucky, while 'suck' feels very lucky. So, don't stay stuck on suck, switch to MUCK, today."

[kawliga]

ALIBI IKE
ELMER THE GREAT
THE STRATTON STORY
THE PRIDE OF ST. LOUIS
RHUBARB
KILL THE UMPIRE

[neutron star]

The Fan

Just kidding...

[PatrickM]

Originally posted by spoke-:
Eight Men Out is still my favorite.

My main gripe with Field of Dreams was casting Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson. Come on. Shoeless Joe was a cracker from South Carolina, not some fast-talking northerner, fer cryin' out loud.

I recall a quote from someone associated with Field of Dreams (the writer or director etc.) who said, "We got all these complaints about how Ray Liotta wasn't true to life, and wasn't like Shoeless Joe. His accent was wrong, he batted from the wrong side of the plate, all that stuff. No one complained about the incorrect fact that the movie showed long dead ball players materializing in an Iowa cornfield.

[RTFirefly]

Of the ones I've seen:

Bull Durham, bacause it was fun, and it was about the everyday stuff of baseball. And bacause Susan Sarandon's been one of my favorite actresses for decades now. And still a hot babe!
A League of Their Own.
Eight Men Out. Has Sayles ever made a bad movie? This one gets you into the nitty-gritty of how things really were between the owners and the players, back then. Talk about hardball.
The Natural.
Field of Dreams. A little too much of a n-handkerchief movie, if you know what I mean, but still worth seeing.
Major League was funny, I remember, but I honestly don't remember much of it, and I only saw it a couple of years ago.

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"Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo." - Marx

[Little Nemo]

And how come no one's mentioned Mr. Baseball yet?

Oh, that's right, cuz it sucked.

Anyway, my favorite baseball movie is The Bad News Bears.

[WallyM7]

Anyone remember "Fear Srikes Out?"

[tracer]

Ah, heck. How about BASEketball?

[mrblue92]

Bucky:Can anyone name three movies from/about any other sport (with the possible exception of boxing) as good as these?As good as? Well, it's pretty subjective, but I'd submit:

Hoosiers
The Pistol
and... umm...
White Men Can't Jump???

Happy Gilmore
Tin Cup
Caddyshack?

I'll admit that's pretty tough, though.

I hestitate to mention it, but did anybody like "For Love of the Game"? Maybe the somewhat smarmy sentimentality removes it from consideration for being the "best", eh?

[Ukulele Ike]

I can't believe that no one's mentioned THE FAN.

Before I saw this movie, I had no idea that major league ball could be played in teeming rainstorms.

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Uke

[sqweels]

In case anyone didn't get my joke (or justifiably ignored it) I was referring to the scene in The Warriors where they encounter a gang looking like members of KISS dressed in baseball uniforms and wielding bats. Now that's sporting entertainment.

[tracer]

And speaking of Ty Cobb and baseball movies, what'd y'all think of "Cobb" starring Tommy Lee Jones?

[Spoke]

And speaking of Ty Cobb and baseball movies, what'd y'all think of "Cobb" starring Tommy Lee Jones?

Well, seeing how it was based on the Al Stump hatchet-job-of-a-biography, I thought it sucked. They turned Cobb into an utter raving lunatic, which he was not.

[Odieman]

There are so many great baseball movies, almost all of them have been mentioned above. I have to disagree with "The Natural" being mentioned as a great baseball movie. In my opinion, it was overlong, slow and very pretentious. Robert Redford made a horrible baseball player, and the ending was so overblown it belonged in a Sylvester Stallone move. yes, yes, yes, we figured out that it was a religious allegory. I'd like to paraphrase Calvin Trillin and say that if I can figure out the symbolism of a movie it's pretty heavy handed.

All of the great movies have been mentioned. It's interesting how many of the great baseball movies have been based on books. This isn't a recent trend, but it goes back to at least the fifties with " It Happens Every Spring" and "Alibi Ike", through to the nineties ("Field of Dreams" and Eight Men Out spring to mind. Of course, it does help that their have been so many excellent books written about baseball. George Plimpton has a theory that the larger the ball, the worse the writing, and it does seem to hold. There is a lot of good golf writing out their and almost none on basketball.

As an aside, I was responsible for giving W.P. Kinsella (Author of Field of Dreams (originally titled Shoeless Joe)) a baseball book. I gave the late Ray Belanger, who was the Atlanta Braves scout for Western Canada, a copy of "Home Game" by Paul Quarrington. He liked it so much he passed it on to W.P. Kinsella. It is an excellent book, if you can track it down.
Keith
P.S. RE: Ty Cobb He wasn't really an utter raving lunatic, just a misanthrope.

[sqweels]

George Plimpton has a theory that the larger the ball, the worse the writing

and in order to be on the positive scale the writing has to be on a topic which involves no ball at all.

[Spoke]

Cactus Jack wrote:
I don't understand why Shoeless Joe can't be friends with Ty Cobb just because he called Cobb a sonofabitch. Also, I read Al Stump's biography of Cobb, and if I remember right (I don't have the book handy) it seemed more like he admired Shoeless Joe's playing ability. They didn't really hang or anything.

First of all, Al Stump did a pretty good hatchet job on Ty Cobb. Ty was a crusty fellow, no question, but he wasn't the head case Stump made him out to be. I guess Stump's version of the truth sells more books, though. As a player, I think Cobb knew he was in the role of a villain, and he relished the role and played to it.

Ty and Shoeless Joe had a lot in common. Both came from rural southern backgrounds (Cobb from Georgia and Jackson from South Carolina), and both endured a lot of ridicule from their teammates for their southern mannerisms. My own view is that this is part of the reason Cobb grew so bitter. Seems that Shoeless Joe handled the ribbing a little better, though I think he also felt somewhat isolated from his teammates.

I also think this is part of the reason Cobb had a fondness for Shoeless Joe. In retirement, Cobb would visit Jackson in South Carolina. I believe he may have lent him financial assistance as well. (Not sure on that point.)

Cobb got rich on Coca Cola stock. Despite his hard exterior, he did a lot of good works with the money. As you mention, he supported old ball players financially. He also built a hospital in his hometown of Royston, GA. So Cobb may not be quite the ogre everyone believes.

Cactus Jack wrote:
And wasn't Ray Liotta a nobody before Field of Dreams?

Nah. He had played a major role in Something Wild with Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith. Liotta was the nut-job villain in that one. (And did a great job with the role, I might add.)

[Sorry for the hijack.]

Oh yeah, and as for great movies from other sports, how about:

Football

1. The Longest Yard
2. North Dallas Forty
3. Knute Rockne, All American

[Sam Stone]

Great Movies about other sports:

"Slapshot"
"Chariots of Fire"
"The Hustler" (if pool is a sport)
"The Longest Yard"
"Hoop Dreams"

My favorite is "Slapshot". Go Hanson Brothers!

[Cactus Jack]

Hey, spoke.
I thought Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde in Resevoir Dogs) was the guy in Something Wild. Are you sure? Anyway, the two look and act enough alike, I hope you can forgive my mixing them up if I have.
Actually, I think they're the same person, like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson.

[tracer]

Does Ken Burns' nine-part Baseball series for PBS count as a "baseball movie"?

[Spoke]

It was indeed Ray Liotta in Something Wild, a fact which you can confirm for yourself here: http://eonline.com/Facts/Movies/0,60,15899,00.html

He's a great thug, but a lousy Shoeless Joe. ;)

[Klaatu]

I don't think this one's been mentioned.
An old baseball movie I liked a lot.

"The Stratton Story", with Jimmy Stewart, made sometime in the late '40s or early '50s, I believe.

It was a true story about a major league pitcher who lost a leg, and with a wooden leg, made a comeback.

[rackensack]

sqweels:
and in order to be on the positive scale the writing has to be on a topic which involves no ball at all.

Fie sir! Give me Roger Angell on baseball over nearly anyone else's topical essays on anything. And Mark Harris' baseball novels (The Southpaw, Bang the Drum Slowly, and It Looked Like Forever) are at least as good if not better than most American novels I've read.

No ball at all indeed.

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"Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." --Satchel Paige

[JWales2]

How about "Fear Strikes Out". True story about that nut Jimmy Persall. Played by Anthony Perkins who threw pretty good in the movie right handed considering he is left handed.

Great feel good baseball movie was "It Happens Every Spring". About a college professor who discovers a liquid that repells wood. Made in the 40's I think.

[jayron 32]

A few people (wallym did it first) mentioned <i> Fear Strikes Out </i>, one of my favorite baseball movies. I also like <i> Bang The Drum Slowly </i> if only for seeing DeNiro with a southern drawl. <i> Field of Dreams </i> was a great movie as well, though I normally don't like Kevin Costner. Surprisingly, he plays a pretty good Iowa farmer. Unfortunately, he plays EVERY part like he's an Iowa farmer...

[jayron 32]

A few people (wallym did it first) mentioned <i> Fear Strikes Out </i>, one of my favorite baseball movies. I also like <i> Bang The Drum Slowly </i> if only for seeing DeNiro with a southern drawl. <i> Field of Dreams </i> was a great movie as well, though I normally don't like Kevin Costner. Surprisingly, he plays a pretty good Iowa farmer. Unfortunately, he plays EVERY part like he's an Iowa farmer...

[pldennison]

I enjoyed The Natural for the most part, except I hated the fact that they changed the ending. If anyone who's seen it hasn't read the book, you should.

Bull Durham I can watch again and again and again. Its better lines have made it in to my and my wife's everyday talk. At least once a month, when one of us says something to which the other reacts incredulously, the other invariably says, "What do you mean, 'William Blake?'"

The Bad News Bears captures it all on a totally different level. The scene in which Vic Morrow debases his son on the pitcher's mound, and his son proceeds on the next to hold the ball he catches and let the runners score, is absolutely perfect.

[Milossarian]

Actually, I was glad they changed Malamud's ending in "The Natural." The book's ending was dumb.

For those of you who don't know, let me ruin it for ya:

The book follows the movie right down to a 'T,' except at the end, Hobbs fails and strikes out.

Then you have a little kid do a, "Say it ain't so, Joe," kind of thing.

What the hell is the overriding message of that? Hobbs is trying to win out over his past. The moral of the book, then, is what? "If you ever screwed up, just pack it in, because no matter what you do to redeem yourself, there is no making up for it."

The movie ending makes much more sense.

There's been some Bad News Bears sequal-bashing in this thread, but I actually thought "Breaking Training," was good.

Let them play!
Let them play!

[tracer]

Yeah, but I defy you to find anyone who thinks The Bad News Bears Go To Japan was any good.

Or Here Come the Tigers, for that matter.

[Crown Prince of Irony]

I know I'm gonna get hammered for this, but For Love of the Game gets an honorable mention in my book. Sure it was long, sure Kevin Costner has all the range of a rusty, crooked BB gun, but the emotional impact on me was amazing. I'm not talking about the relationship stuff; I'm talking about when he gets that final out in a perfect game. I was crying my eyes out. Only suggestion: less chick stuff, more baseball!!! :rolleyes: It felt wierd to be bawling along with my wife at a baseball movie. She cried during the relationship stuff, I cried during the baseball stuff.

Seriously, I think Field of Dreams is the best baseball movie ever made. Every time I see Kevin Costner ask his dad if he wants to "have a catch" I start blubbering like a day-old baby. I'm choked up now just thinking about it. For any guy who grew up distant from his father (which is a lot of us), baseball is one of the few things that really allows father and son to connect. Ranks right up there with handing your dad the wrenches while he works on his lawnmower, or steering the car while your dad works the pedals. Priceless.

[Typo Negative]

'Bull Durham' is the best baseball movie. (and one of my '10 best ever' picks)
'Field of dreams' makes me cry every time I see it.
And I even liked 'For love of the game'.
God bless Kevin Costner!

[tracer]

How about that Pepsi commercial that parodied Field of Dreams? "I saved nine cents!"

[pulykamell]

How can 'Field of Dreams' even seriously qualify when Shoeless Joe's character batted RIGHT-HANDED in the movie?

It's just syrup, anyway.