Craig Mitchell -- My Top Ten Baseball Flicks

Today I’m going to focus on Hollywood and what I view as the best baseball movies of all time. I
name ten films as my favorite baseball films of all time! I've left off a few and I know some are lower than some of you might have put them, but this is my list. So here we go. Pull up a beer and read on. Here’s my 10^th favorite Baseball movie of all time.

10) BULL DURHAM (1988) – Ok, ok, simmer down. I realize almost everyone who is reading this just screamed when they read that Bull Durham is at the bottom of my list. I’m sorry. It’s my preference. I loved the performances. Everyone was good from Kevin Costner to Robert Wuhl to Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. But I just never connected with his film. Don’t know why. I’ve seen it multiple times, but there’s just something about it I just don’t get. Perhaps it’s the love story? Not sure. But I recognize its popularity. Oh and Crash Davis is the coolest name in all fictional baseball movies.

 9) THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942) – The oldest film on this list by far, and still a classic. It’s well documented that this is the story of Lou Gerhig “The Legend” rather than the real man. Still, it’s successfully tugs at your heartstrings as we witness the rise and the sad demise of the Iron Horse. Gary Cooper is awkward and nonathletic in all the baseball scenes. (He batted right handed and they reversed the film for his batting scenes and runs in slow motion.) But, it’s Gary Cooper. Teresa Wright is charming as Eleanor Twitchell and Walter Brennen is crusty and loveable and Babe Ruth plays himself! The Babe, Babe Ruth is in the film, for that reason alone this is a gem. I have lots of love for this World War II era charmer. When #4 walks down the runway to the clubhouse for that last time and his number and his uniform disappear. Well…why do you think they recreated that scene at the end of Cheers for?

8) THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) –  The original, the classic. With all due respect to the remake, this one was the ground breaker. Walter Matthau is terrific as Morris Buttermaker and Tatum O'Neal and Jackie Earle Hayley lead the pack as team mates of this rag tag bunch of  ballplayers. Add Vic Morrow, Joyce Van Patton and Brandon Cruz and you all set to enjoy this one. This stands tall amid all the sequels and TV series. The film is marvelously un-pc, in your face and fearless. Director Michael Ritchie hits all the right notes and is very loyal to the game, making you believe that this fictional little league team really exists.

7) FIELD OF DREAMS (1989) – A terrific love letter to the love of baseball and how it glues us and our relationships together throughout time. Kevin Costners second appearance on this list (and last, “For the Love of the Game” didn’t make my top 5.) This is my favorite performance by Costner. He and James Earl Jones have great chemistry to boot.  Wonderfully done, touching and an ending that makes the biggest most macho of men cry.  This is a classic that very well could have been the best picture of the year (it was nominated and lost to “Driving Miss Daisy”) It was also the next to last theatrical appearance by Burt Lancaster.  Great film, I’d watch it more often but I’m out of tissues.

6) 42  (2013) – The most recent film on this list, 42 takes the gloves off and shows the honest, brutal truth of the horrible treatment that Jackie Robinson endured in breaking the color barrier in 1947. Chadwich Boseman and Nichole Beharie are wonderful as Jackie and Rachel Robinson, your heart aches with them and roots for them at every turn. Alan Tudyk will shock you as Ben Chapman. His all-out portrayal as the Phillies manager is brutal and effective.  Lucas Black, Christopher Meloni and Max Gail are all terrific as Pee-Wee Reese, Leo Durocher  and Burt Shotton.  Harrison Ford however, gets lost in the part of Branch Rickey, playing him more over the top and more like a caricature than the real Dodger owner.  The baseball scenes and the recreation of Ebbets Field will have you calling them "Dem Bums!"

5) A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992) – Who knew Penny Marshall loved baseball? It’s hard to believe she didn’t after seeing this movie.  To this day, I still think Geena Davis was a catcher.  Anchored by Davis and Tom Hanks this film is a testament to the All American Girls Baseball League of the 40’s and early 50’s.  Davis and Lori Petty have amazing chemistry as sisters who make and then clash in the leagues inaugural season.  Hanks, Davis, Petty are terrific; Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell have never been better playing combative teammates.  Jon Lovitz steals the show as the agent that recruits the girls and David Stathairn is terrific as the leagues embattled GM.  The movie still holds up and if you don’t get a lump in your throat in the ending or end credits you’re lying!

4) MAJOR LEAGUE (1989) – As far as baseball play brought to a big screen, this one is the tops! I still get goose bumps watching Rickey “Wild Thing” Vaughn walk in from the bullpen to the song "Wild Thing" and when Jake Taylor calls his shot in the movies climax and the entire stadium behind him erupts……how can you NOT love that. The movie is funny, thrilling and has just enough of a love story so as to please both men and women. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenguer, Wesley Snipes, James Gammon, Dennis Haysbert and Corbin Bernson are all amazing each creating iconic characters that still live on today! (Topps is releasing 25th anniversary baseball cards to celebrate the film)

3) Moneyball (2011) --  Brad Pitt perfectly plays Billy Beane in this film that earned Oscar nominations for Pitt and Jonah Hill and also for best picture. The story picks up after the 2001 season and chronicles how Beane, with the help of the young upstart Peter Brand buck all the rules and built a pennant contender using algorithms and saber-metrics. Knowing the ultimate outcome doesn't slow the film down a bit. This is a terrific ride through the back doors of the front office of the 2002 A's that you can watch and re-watch time and time again. The entire cast is stellar, with shout outs to Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe, Chris Pratt as Scott Hatteberg and Stephen Bishop as David Justice. Moneyball is a winner and an instant classic.

2) *61 (2001) – Now we are in rarefied air. Long time Yankee and baseball fan Billy Crystal lovingly recreates the 1961 season and Roger Maris’ breaking of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record in the shadow of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s assault on the record in 1998. Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper recreate the swings of both icons and you live and die with their trials and tribulations as the fans, media and team mates take sides on who they think should break Ruth’s mark. The old Tiger Stadium becomes the classic Yankee Stadium too, how cool is that? I love just about everything about this movie. I love both leads, Jane and Pepper inhabit Mantle and Maris with scary realism but Anthony Michael Hall as Whitey Ford, Richard Masur as Milt Khan, Bruce McGill as Ralph Houk and Chris Bauer as Bob Cerv all hit the mark as well. Together, with Crystal’s direction this living fairy tale comes to life and is hard to beat.

1) THE NATURAL (1984) – From living fairy tale, to the ultimate fairy tale.  Bernard Malamud’s classic novel is brought to the screen by Barry Levinson in so beautiful a visual form that it’s almost musical. Robert Redford shines as an aging ballplayer given one more chance to live his dream of unfulfilled potential. While, it’s a bit of a stretch to envision Redford as a wide eyed 17 year old in the first twenty minutes of the film, it can be forgiven as this take of redemption unfolds in beautiful lyrical style.  Redford, Robert Duvall and Glenn Close are all on the top of their game; Wilfred Brimley and Richard Farnsworth make you believe they are old cronies in the 1930’s. But baseball is easily the star here as we root for Roy Hobbs to overcome all the obstacles that befall him to bring a championship to Pop Fisher. With a climax that never fails to make me well up, The Natural encapsulates everything there is to love about baseball and at the the same time wakes up the little kid and dreams that live inside us all as we live and die with Hobbs. The film setting makes it timeless and to me, The Natural is the ultimate baseball film. 

(***SPOILER*** In Malamud’s novel, Hobbs stikes out in the big game! So, in 1984, having already read the book, the films ending was unexpected and very, very welcome. It was the ending I had wished for when I read the novel. Some critics might argue that but who ever heard of a fairy tale with a unhappy ending?)

So how did I do? What did I miss? What’s your favorite?