The top 10 baseball movies of all time are debated
When it comes to athletics and cinema, I don't think any sport transcends to the big screen better than baseball. From legendary figures like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Lou Gehrig, who become larger than life characters on the theatrical scene, to that alluring mystique that encompasses the sport, baseball and cinema mesh together like peanut butter and jelly.
That's why in the lull of the summer months I thought there would be nothing better than to share my top 10 favorite baseball movies of all time and pit them against the favorites of my writing cohort Matt Kamp. You be the judge of who has the better list.
LITTLE BIG LEAGUE
ROSEBERRY (NR)
KAMP (HM): Any baseball fan growing up has dreamed of managing their favorite franchise. In this 1994 film, Billy Heywood gets that chance with the Minnesota Twins after his grandfather dies and leaves the team in his control. Ken Griffey Jr. has a cameo in the movie with the Seattle Mariners.
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
ROSEBERRY (HM): A 1992 flick about women's baseball during World War II while the men were off at war, "A League of Their Own" is a heartwarming story that stars Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna. Hanks is awesome in his role as the drunken head coach.
KAMP (NR)
COBB
ROSEBERRY (HM): "Cobb" is about arguably baseball's biggest jerk, Ty Cobb, as he enters his twilight years while living alone. A 1994 movie with Tommy Lee Jones playing the old codger Cobb, features a young sports writer who must spend time with Cobb in an attempt to write his biography, which turns up some very dark stories.
KAMP (NR)
THE FINAL SEASON
ROSEBERRY (HM): "The Final Season," is a 2007 depiction of the Norway High School baseball team's final season, starring Sean Astin and Powers Boothe. It pulls at the heartstrings and motivates you with the passion the small town of Norway, Iowa supports their successful team. It has a classic baseball philosophical quote about the sport and its connection with small town U.S.A. also, that says, "Baseball is the only sport where the object is to get home."
KAMP (NR):
MR. BASEBALL
ROSEBERRY (NR)
KAMP (No. 10): Not only does Jack Elliott have to get accustomed to a different culture in Japan, but also a different style of baseball. It follows Elliott and his mustache through a season in Japan where he falls in love with his manager's daughter. It's an entertaining movie that shows just how different baseball is in Japan compared to here.
SYNOPSIS: Tom Selleck plays Jack Elliott, a washed-up All-Star from the Dodgers that is shipped to Japan to find his swing. Dennis Haysbert steps out of his Pedro Cerrano jersey and becomes Max "The Hammer" Dubois, Elliot's teammate in Japan.
EIGHT MEN OUT
ROSEBERRY (No. 10): It's a great historical baseball piece that makes you feel for the old time players, who unlike today's players with their luxurious contracts, were barely scraping by under the reign of penny pinching owner Charles Comiskey. It stars John Cusack and Charlie Sheen.
KAMP (No. 9): It is baseball's most famous scandal played out on the big screen. It is interesting to watch how the events unfold and how Shoeless Joe Jackson may have just been an innocent bystander to the conspiracy.
SYNOPSIS: "Eight Men Out" is a 1988 pic about the Black Sox scandal of 1919. It delves into the corruption that blemished baseball that season when eight members of the Chicago White Sox took bribes to throw the World Series. All eight players end up with a lifetime ban from baseball, including star Shoeless Joe Jackson, who still remains absent from the Hall of Fame today over the affair.
61*
ROSEBERRY (No. 9): The casting for this movie is brilliant. Barry Pepper as Maris and Thomas Jane as Mantle are absolutely perfect. Like "Eight Men Out," it's a great historical baseball flick.
KAMP (No. 5): America was in love with the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase in 1998, but that was not the case in 1961, at least not for Roger Maris. Billy Crystal does a wonderful job showing just how much Maris had to endure and he delves into the playboy life lived by Mickey Mantle.
SYNOPSIS: "61*" was a made for HBO film directed by Billy Crystal in 2001 about Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris' chase for Babe Ruth's hallowed single season home run record of 60. It follows the two New York Yankee sluggers on their quests as they become the best of friends despite having polar opposite personalities.
THE ROOKIE
ROSEBERRY (No. 8): It follows Tampa Bay's Jimmy Morris back through the minor leagues as he finally fullfils his dream of becoming a major league player. Watch for an appearance by Angus T. Jones, Jake from TV's "Two and a Half Men," cast as Morris' young son.
KAMP (No. 8): A great movie about a man driven to make the big leagues for his son and the high school baseball team he coaches. It shows how difficult it is for a father to be away from his family chasing a dream that may never come true.
SYNOPSIS: Another baseball true story, "The Rookie" is the 2002 film about former Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher Jimmy Morris. Morris, played by Dennis Quaid, plays a 39-year-old father, chemistry teacher and high school baseball coach in Texas, who suddenly finds he can throw a baseball substantially faster than he could as a younger man. He hits the radar gun at an amazing 98 MPH.
PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
ROSEBERRY (No. 7): This is by far the oldest movie on my list, debuting in 1942. I watched "Pride of the Yankees" for the first time when I was 12 and loved it. Maybe the coolest part of this movie is Babe Ruth plays himself.
KAMP: I can not put a ranking on this because I did not get a chance to see it.
SYNOPSIS: Gary Cooper plays Yankee great Lou Gehrig as he rises to baseball fame as the "Iron Horse," baseball's all-time consecutive games played leader at 2,130, before succumbing to ALS, a fatal nerve disease which now carries his name.
FOR LOVE OF THE GAME
ROSEBERRY (NR)
KAMP (No. 7): In today's age not many players stay with the team that originally signed them. Billy Chapel, played by Kevin Costner, is one of the few and is coming to the end of a wonderful career with the Detroit Tigers. Facing the New York Yankees with Vin Scully calling the game, Chapel looks to be perfect on and off the field. John C. Reilly plays his personal catcher, Gus Sinski.
SYNOPSIS: Billy Chapel must decide what to do with his legendary baseball career after the only team he knows, the Detroit Tigers, is sold to a group of owners that don't want him. Pitching in the regular-season finale against the New York Yankees, Chapel must decide between two loves, baseball or his on-again, off-again girlfriend played by Kelly Preston.
THE SANDLOT
ROSEBERRY (No. 6): They say the Jet's lost a step. I disagree. Every time I watch it I feel like calling up my buddies and finding an open field to knock a ball around. "The Sandlot" reminds you what baseball, friendship and being a kid are all about.
KAMP (HM): A very funny movie that falls just outside of my Top 10 and it is probably because of the lack of knowledge of baseball that Scotty Smalls possesses. Who doesn't know who Babe Ruth is?
SYNOPSIS: The story of Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, Scotty Smalls and the rest of the baseball crazy youngsters in this 1993 movie. It follows Smalls as he moves to a new community where all the neighborhood kids constantly play sandlot baseball which leads to an unbreakable bond between them.
THE BAD NEWS BEARS
ROSEBERRY (No. 5): There's only one "The Bad News Bears" in my opinion and that's the original 1976 version with the legendary Walter Matthau playing lazy, beer-guzzling head coach and pool cleaner Morris Buttermaker. The movie has a nice message in it, too. When it comes to little league winning isn't everything, it's all about the love of the game.
KAMP (No. 6): Last week I did my story on slow-pitch softball fantasy teams using MLB players. If I did fictional characters, Walter Matthau's Morris Buttermaker would have been a coach. Funny movie with a drunk Buttermaker trying to teach a group of outcasts the game of baseball.
SYNOPSIS: The Bad News Bears team was made up of a bunch of lovable losers with practically no baseball talent, including mouthy little shortstop Tanner Boyle.
THE NATURAL
ROSEBERRY (No. 3): It's just a feel good story that captures the mystique and drama that make us love baseball so much. The scene where Hobbs jacks the bomb that knocks out the stadium lights is probably one of the most memorable scenes in cinematic history, not just baseball cinema.
KAMP (No. 3): I may be one of the few to think that the book was better, but even with that said, the movie itself is easily in my top four. The music played when Hobbs cracks his game-winning home run is perfect. When you hear it, you associate it with "The Natural." Great movie about the rise and fall of a can't miss prospect before his return with the last-place Knights.
SYNOPSIS: Robert Redford plays aging player Roy Hobbs in 1984's "The Natural," who has become as iconic to baseball over the years as any real life player in the history of the game.
FIELD OF DREAMS
ROSEBERRY (No. 2): I think most people connect with 1989's "Field of Dreams" so much because of its underlying storyline of the father and son relationship, using baseball as the defining bond. I know my first experience with the game was playing catch with my dad, as it is for many players.
KAMP (No. 4): It's a simple game of catch that goes a long way in a kid's life. A good movie with a some over-the-top ideas, but it still gets the point across.
SNYOPSIS: Kevin Costner is great as Ray Kinsella, the man who builds a ball field in the middle of his farm because a voice tells him to do it. James Earl Jones' speech about baseball later in the movie is a classic, too.
MAJOR LEAGUE
ROSEBERRY (No. 1): Here it is, No. 1 — drum roll please — "Major League" from 1989. I've probably watched this movie 100 times and it never gets old. The lines and dialogue — which aren't appropriate for this paper — never stop being hilarious.
KAMP (No. 2): This movie was in a battle for the top spot with another movie. It is hard to choose between the two of them, but I don't believe in ties and there had to be a clear-cut second and first. Major League is as hilarious as they come. How many people would have to debate between becoming a manager of the Cleveland Indians or continuing to sell tires?
SYNOPSIS: The sorry Cleveland Indians, owned by an ex-exotic dancer who wants to move them to Miami after one more awful season, turn it around to magically earn a spot in the playoffs. The loveable reject and over-the-hill players like Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, Willie Mays Hayes, Pedro Cerrano, Jake Taylor and Roger Dorn are classic and of course Bob Ueker is the man as the team's announcer.
BULL DURHAM
ROSEBERRY (No. 4): I watched "Bull Durham" for the first time this summer and realized Kamp is right, I've been missing out, it's a classic. Kevin Costner is great as catcher Crash Davis, as is Tim Robbins as phenom pitcher Nuke LaLoosh. It does a great job of showing the seedy underbelly of minor league baseball, where learning the nuances of the game off the field are as important as on it. This 1988 flick is definitely not a lollygagger when it comes to baseball movies.
KAMP (No. 1): The movie that beat out "Major League" for my top spot is "Bull Durham." Is there a better baseball actor than Kevin Costner? He knows his way around baseball movies and westerns, I'll give him that. It is not as funny as Major League, but it adds a drama aspect that the former is missing and it shows what life in the minor leagues is really like.
SYNOPSIS: Kevin Costner's character, Crash Davis, is signed by the Durham Bulls to help phenom pitcher Nuke LaLoosh, played by Tim Robbins, make it to the big leagues. Costner has a lot to teach LaLoosh both on and off the diamond. Susan Sarandon stars as the love interest of both men.
ROSEBERRY's Top 10
HM: League of Their Own
HM: Cobb
HM: The Final Season
10. Eight Men Out
9. 61*
8. The Rookie
7. Pride of the Yankees
6. The Sandlot
5. Bad News Bears
4. Bull Durham
3. The Natural
2. Field of Dreams
1. Major League
KAMP's Top 10
HM: The Sandlot
HM: Little Big League
10. Mr. Baseball
9. Eight Men Out
8. The Rookie
7. For Love of the Game
6. Bad News Bears
5. 61*
4. Field of Dreams
3. The Natural
2. Major League
1. Bull Durham
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