My Top 5 Baseball Movies

Twenty-seven years ago today, Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez pickled The Beast. In doing so, he destroyed an old blind man's property, ruined a picnic, ripped apart a movie screen, and nearly killed a dog all to rescue a Babe Ruth signed baseball. And we love him for it.

The Sandlot was released in theaters on April 7, 1993 and has since become a cult classic. It's one of those movies that not only has everyone seen, but everyone loves, regardless of age, race, gender, or anything else. I legitimately can't think of a single person I know who doesn't enjoy this movie. My generation remembers it as the baseball movie we all watched and loved as kids, but being set in the year Lou Brock broke the stolen base record (1962), it's a movie our parents can also relate to. Very few movies can capture the nostalgia across multiple generations, but I guess that's what helps make it a great movie.

Seeing posts on Twitter about today being The Sandlot's birthday got me thinking about what my favorite baseball movies are so I came up with a top 5. We'll start with 3 movies that didn't make the cut for various reasons:

Space Jam - Everyone who knows me knows Space Jam is my favorite movie of all time. While widely considered a basketball movie, the movie begins with a young Michael Jordan telling his father about his dreams of playing both basketball and baseball. Following an awesome opening credit baseketball montage, the next scene features MJ, now retired from basketball, announcing his pursuit of a baseball career. Other scenes include MJ striking out in a AA game, talking with his son about his rec league baseball game, and he even returns to Earth at a baseball field. I wanted to slide Space Jam into the baseball category, but I quickly realized one of the most annoying parts about Christmas is all the squids that try really hard to pretend Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I won't subject Space Jam to that so we'll leave it off the list.

Major League - Most people love Major League and for a long while, I did too. Something changed around 2011 when Charlie Sheen went completely nuts. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of garbage people in this world whose work I still like. For example, despite Kanye being a gigantic asshole, I still love just about everything on his first 5 albums. Despite Harvey Weinstein being a sexual abuser and all around piece of shit, I still love Inglorious Basterds and Good Will Hunting. But there's something about the amount of uninteresting, attention-craving nonsense that has since made me hate just about everything associated with Charlie Sheen. I can't even watch The Departed without seeing Martin Sheen and immediately thinking about his dipshit son.

Hardball - Is Keanu Reeves a good actor? He'll never win an Oscar, hell I'm not even sure if he's ever been nominated for one, but there's something about all of his movies that I thoroughly enjoy. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure would be in my all time top 10, Point Break and The Replacements are movies I rarely skip by when they're on TV, and Hardball is one of my favorite baseball movies. While not one of the more popular sports movies, Hardball follows the story of a gambling addict as he coaches an inner-city youth baseball team. It's a great movie that even features a Sammy Sosa cameo. It doesn't crack my top 5 because there's been so many good baseball movies, but it really isn't far off.

The Top 5:

The California Angels participated in a cheating scandal
that would rival the Houston Astros.

(5) Angels in the Outfield - This is a bit of a sentimental pick as it was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. Angels in the Outfield is a remake of a crappy 1951 movie of the same name and features a loaded cast - a very young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Danny Glover, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza, Adrien Brody, Matthew McConaughey, MLB veteran Carney Lansford, and the actress who played the Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2. Angels in the Outfield follows the story of a boy living in a foster home who makes a wish that the last place California Angels can win the pennant so that his non existent father will love him... because that entire sentence makes sense. Actual angels end up coming down from the skies to assist the baseball team in winning games as the team competes for a title.

Ghost baseball players living in a cornfield is the most
believable part of this movie.

(4) Field of Dreams - Let me start off by saying this movie makes absolutely no sense. Kevin Costner living in bumblefuck, Iowa hears voices that tell him to mow down his cornfield and build a baseball field. The ghosts of baseball players then come out from the remaining corn and begin playing baseball. Those same voices then tell him to drive to Boston to kidnap a retired author and take him to Fenway Park. The voices then appear in text form on the Boston scoreboard and tell him to go to Minnesota to find Archie "Moonlight" Graham, a long retired baseball player who played one inning in his MLB career. He finds out that Moonlight Graham is dead. However, he ends up going for a walk and surprisingly finds Moonlight Graham also walking on the sidewalk. After a conversation about the important things in life, Costner decides he can't bring Graham with him back to Iowa so he lets him go (apparently kidnapping wasn't an option this time.) On the drive back to Iowa, Costner picks up a young hitchhiker named Archie Graham who wants to play baseball. Even more bullshit happens and at no point in watching this movie do you feel you have any idea what is going on. With that being said, I love everything about this movie.

Remember Derek Jeter's "flip" play? Jeremy Giambi was safe.

(3) Moneyball - At some point, I'm going to get around to reading the book that this movie is based on. A sports movie getting nominated for an Oscar is a rarity and for whatever reason is usually only reserved for Boxing flicks. Moneyball, however, managed to earn a nomination as Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill play the roles of A's GM Billy Beane and his assistant GM and build the Oakland A's roster on an incredibly stingy budget. It's based on a true story and the A's real life success ended up completely changing how baseball teams approach the game. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill go all in on the analytics and meet a ton of resistance from Phillip Seymour Hoffman who plays the role of A's manager, Art Howe. The movie is played up for Hollywood of course and paints Howe as a villain who makes decisions in
spite of what Billy Beane wants. The real life Art Howe has since explained how he's legitimately pissed out how he's portrayed in the film as he and Billy Beane, in reality, worked together to help the A's become successful.

The actor who played Yeah-Yeah actually
grew up to be a huge douchebag

(2) The Sandlot - As mentioned above, this movie is simply iconic and there's not much more to say. There's a scene in the movie where the kids play against a cross-town team and you get to see all of the kids take a swing at the plate. Despite being painted as a baseball legend who would go on to play in the MLB, Benny has the worst swing out of any of the 9 kids. Squints and Smalls have the two best swings on the roster. It's a shame none of these kids really went on to have notable acting careers.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains

(1) Bull Durham - The second Kevin Costner baseball movie that makes my top 5 is my favorite of all time. Bull Durham focuses on the story of a journey man catcher who has spent much of his career in the minor leagues as he tries to teach life lessons to a hot shot pitching prospect before his career ultimately takes off. Meanwhile, the two baseball players are competing against each other for a woman who sleeps with one baseball player each summer. There are so many hysterical baseball anecdotes within this movie, including my favorite scene where we learn what managers/players talk about during mound visits. This movie is absolutely hysterical and I feel like it somewhat depicts what goes on at the minor league level, even if it's over exaggerated.

Additional notes:

-One of the first things I plan on doing when baseball inevitably resumes is to attend a minor league game either in Lakewood or on a road trip to Wilmington, DE. We all miss baseball, but the MLB is a billion dollar operation that will ultimately survive. Unfortunately the minor leagues don't generate nearly as much revenue and many teams are likely going to end up folding. These teams are going to need a lot of support when the world goes back to normal and I really hope the fans do their part and show up.

-Kanye's first 5 albums are absolute fire and I'd put them up against any rappers discography. Unfortunately, every album he's produced since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is complete dogshit.

-There's an urban legend that Cal Ripken Jr.'s games played streak was in jeopardy as he caught Kevin Costner banging his wife before one of the games. Ripken was so distraught that he couldn't play. Mysteriously, the Orioles had an issue with their lights that night and had to postpone the game. While it's documented that this story is extremely exaggerated/never happened, I still want to believe it.

-The field where The Sandlot takes place is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have no idea if I'm ever going to go to Utah, but if I do, that's one place I plan on stopping.