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.
The Natural
No contest.
Eight Men Out
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.
I’d go with Scylla, “The Natural” followed by “Bull Durham”
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.
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.
Susan Sarandon.
- The Natural
- Eight Men Out
- 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!
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.
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” –Satchel Paige
Well, I would have to say Field of Dreams and the Natural (tie) do it for me. However, two films that get special mention:
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Whenever I need a laugh, I just have to watch the baseball scenes from Naked Gun.
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Whenever I want total mindless, simple entertainment, I like It Happens Every Spring.
Zev Steinhardt
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
What, didn’t anybody here see A League of Their Own ?
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.