Batter Up!

 A Starting Nine For A New Season

I have been a baseball fan since I was a kid.  One of my earliest memories of sports is carefully putting a “Smiling Bucco” sticker on the back fender of my bike.  I’ve lived with the highs (World Series champs in 1971 and 1979) and the lows (a 20 year losing streak through the ‘90s and early 2000s).  I’ve been a movie fan for about that same length of time.  And I have wanted to do a list combining the two for years now.  It was always one thing or another that kept it off the blog. 

But not this year!

The great thing about spring is that it gives every baseball fan hope.  THIS could be the year!  We finally have the team together. The division isn’t very good, all we need is a little luck, and this could be our year.  And all but one team will end up at the wrong end of the competitive stick.  Only one fandom will celebrate their team as champions.

But that comes later.  Springtime is for hope and dreams.  So let’s get our dreams ready by watching some great baseball movies.

As always, I note that I am not, let me emphasize that as NOT, offering these up as the Best/Greatest baseball movies of all time.  These are my favorites, the ones that bring something special to me.  Consequently, some great movies will not appear here.  Mostly because I haven’t seen them.  So feel free to pitch other movies for me to watch in the comments.  So, here’s my starting nine baseball movies (in no particular order):

• Pride of the Yankees – Here’s an old school baseball movie that holds up surprisingly well.  The Yankees hold a special place in the history of the Great American Game.  In a list of pinstripe superstars, there are only a few that can match the place of Lou Gehrig.  He rose from the literal streets of New York City to become one of the greatest players in the sport’s history.  Add in Gary Cooper in the lead role, and this is a baseball classic not to be missed.

• Major League – From the sublime to the ridiculous.  This is one of three comedies about the game on this list.  While the team in question is the Cleveland Indians (precursor to today’s Guardians), the story of a sad sack team struggling along with a group of castoffs and oddballs hits close to home to Pirate fans after two 100 loss seasons.  I love everything about this movie except the rather awkward romantic sub-plot.  A movie for all of us who ever dreamed of making it to the show.

• The Natural – Part of the legacy of baseball in America is a mystique.  It brought us the dream of an unknown rising from the distant fields to electrify the world.  Roy Hobbs is just that character.  There is a mystery in his past, and there is magic in his bat.  The home run scene (and if you’ve seen this movie before, you know EXACTLY which scene I’m talking about) is the most magical moment in a baseball movie ever.  Including the one just a couple of slots below this one.

• Nine Men Out – As much I love the mythos of baseball, the historical game has a dark underbelly of greed and corruption as well.  Here is the story of the greatest scandal of the sport, the World Series fixing 1919 Chicago “Black Sox”.  Players took money to throw games, many of them thrown out of the game, and two great injustices, in my opinion.  The first is the permanent ban of Shoeless Joe Jackson (I’m unconvinced of his complicity), and the addition of the puritanical and dictatorial commissioner of baseball in Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  But if you want baseball drama, here’s everything you could want.

• Field of Dreams – Time for a little more baseball mythology.  It is a family game.  Families often pass down their love of the baseball diamond and the action found there to the next generation.    Baseball is haunted by ghosts, and in a cornfield in Iowa some of those ghosts will save a family.  If I had to pick one of these as the only baseball movie ever to watch again, this is the one I’d choose.

• A League of Their Own – A little more history of the game.  During World War II, to meet the needs of baseball fans, they created a new league.  This one starred female players in a time when the very idea was alien.  Once the war ended, the league wasn’t far behind it.  But in those years, they put on a show that is still worth watching.  A story of friends, family and fighting social expectations.

• Bull Durham – Here’s our second baseball comedy.  For all the emphasis on “The Show” (a common reference for the major league level), there are multiple levels below that.  The minors are the dreams of most players die.  For every can’t miss prospect, there are a dozen more who will be stuck riding the bus.  This is a great story about the love of the game, both on and off the field.

• Bad News Bears – The third of our comedies is this mid-70s spoof on youth baseball.  The story is familiar now, a team of misfits led by an irascible older mentor who will bring out the best in each other.  Walter Matthau is superb in grouchy old man mode, and Tatum O’Neal leads the smart aleck band of kids.  A little edgy by mid-70s standards, but very Bart Simpson-esque overall.

• 42 – The story of baseball icon Jackie Robinson has to be included in this list.  First, because it’s a wonderful movie.  Second, because it’s a pivotal story for our nation and the game itself.  Robinson took on the unenviable task of breaking through America’s racism in the brightest spotlight possible.  He had to be not only a superlative person to deal with the abuse that came his way, he also had to be a great ballplayer. 

 The original “Angels in the Outfield” just missed making the list.  How am I supposed to resist a story about a losing Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team? But there was always going to be the “But what about…?” movies.

Is there a movie you would insist has to make the list?  Let me know in the comments!

In the meantime, Play Ball!