Someone else I know did a horrible, and I mean just horrible job naming the 10 best Baseball Movies of all time. It was one of those jobs that makes you think, this guy just has no clue what's going on, a good top 10 list can have some movement in the list and you can argue on the placement of the movies on the list, but there are certain movies you have to hit. I'll make my own list, which may not be 100% accurate but it at least lends itself to some credibility. But first I'll start off by mocking his list:
10. Field of Dreams
9. Hard Ball
8. Fever Pitch
7. The Natural
6. Little Big League
5. Rookie of the year
4. The Rookie
3. Major League
2. The Sandlot
1. A league of their own
Holy crap, fucking "Fever Pitch"? "Little Big League"? Come the fuck on, how dare you have those two movies on there and skip some of the best baseball movies of all time. It pains my eyes to see those movies over "Field of Dreams" and "The Natural", and it is basically telling the world that you are a clueless yokel pedophile when you put those movies over "Bad News Bears" and "Bull Durham", which you left completely off the list. I understand liking kids baseball movies, but can you at least hide your sexual attraction to children a little better?
The sad thing is that you start off so well, it's like you almost kind of steer in the right direction and then you jump off a godamn cliff. 1-3 could legitimately be defended as the greatest baseball movies of all time. They are all fantastic movies which warrant at least consideration. But then you derail your train off the tracks forever with "The Rookie"...are you trying to tell me that this piece of Disney garbage is the 4th best baseball move ever? It wasn't even a well made movie!
From there it gets even worse. 9,8,6,5,4 are all abhorrent selections, let me tell you why.
9. Hard Ball - I liked it a lot better when this movie was called Mighty Ducks 7 - Gettin' Mighty With It. The tagline for this movie is the universally stupid and incorrect saying "The most important thing in life is showing up" Well if you show up and do a fucking horrible job like you did with this list you are a failure and a bum, and you wouldn't have been either of those things if you'd stayed at home or not put this list out there.
8. Fever Pitch - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon...this is possibly the movie that I'll be forced to watch in hell for all time. Even the most jaded of Red Sox fans doesn't consider this a "good" movie. It's tripe, it's awful, and all DVD's of this movie should be burned, and the master copy should be shot out of a cannon into the sun. This might actually make the list of worst movies of all time. When the nuclear war sweeps the earth priests of the new religions are going to use this movie to show the evils of the old world or possibly treat a copy of this movie like the necronomicon, a tome so evil and terrible that it must be sealed away for all time at the risk of angering the fire gods of the sky again.
6. Little Big League - Extreme Islamic Fundamentalist Radicals (the bad kind) show this movie to suicide bombers before they send them out in a truck full of dangerously poorly rigged explosives.
5. Rookie of the Year - There's one sequence in this movie that is any good, and it's the extremely flawed part where they show him striking out major league stars. I believe they show him striking out Ken Griffey Jr, Barry Bonds and some other guys. This movie was made in 1993 and the kid plays for the Cubs...what's wrong with this picture? It actually is a good example for why this movie can't be on the list of greatest baseball movies, it doesn't understand how baseball works. Frequently throughout the movie there are terrible errors about scorekeeping and baseball rules and it conceptually has no idea how the game of baseball is played, it is just factually terrible. The IMDB page for errors in this movie is about 400 pages long.
Here are some movies that didn't make my top 10 but you could argue belong in there somewhere:
Any sequels or remakes - I like Major League 2 and Angels in the Outfield, I think there are a couple more remakes out there that are pretty solid baseball movies but I didn't include them because I think the list is rounded out enough without sequels.
Summer Catch - Actually not a bad movie, and if this list were hottest chick in a baseball movie it would be number one by a lot. But in the end the acting in this movie leaves it out of my top 10, the acting is pretty terrible at times and the realistic chance of a scout all of a sudden deciding to sign a kid to a big signing bonus is silly. There are plenty of guys who can't pitch complete games and always blow it in the 9th inning, they are called middle relievers in the big leagues. Plot holes keeps this off my list.
61* - I like this movie, I think the acting in particular is pretty fantastic. It also clearly understands the game of baseball. The problem I have is the factual inaccuracies that this movie suffers from being too Yankeeized*. I think when you make a historical pictures about this timeframe there is enough evidence to be factually accurate that a decent job editing the movie should be easy. The film makes some pretty horrible factual errors but I still like it and it could very well appear on a top 10 list.
Angels in the Outfield - I actually like the remake better than the original. It is very campy but I'll allow it. I was just never that crazy about the concept of this movie, so I'm leaving it off.
10. For love of the game - I saw this movie and was a little shocked that it wasn't more highly regarded. While it's as much a campy love story as it is a baseball movie it is still pretty good even though there are some editing problems. I also love the fact that it's not some championship game, or some kind of playoff game, it's a simple movie about an aging veteran having one more day in the sun. Which always rates highly with me. It shocks me to have 3 Kevin Costner movies on this list but so be it.
9. Eight Men Out - Although it's filled with factual errors and problems I find the subject matter to be fascinating. The acting is pretty great too but the story is just compelling as hell. Amazing performances by John Cusack and David Strathairn. The cast of this movie is fantastic.
8. Mr. Baseball - Still holds up today as a phenomenal movie, both in the baseball part of the movie, and the love story. But again it has the aging veteran trying to have one last day in the sun. It's formulaic as hell, and you can predict what happens, but it's still fun to watch and Tom Selleck is the perfect part for the roll of stupid american ballplayer in a foreign country. The editing is actually pretty top notch for a sports film as well.
7. Bad News Bears - The remake was garbage but the original is fantastic, it's pretty much the original story about losers making it which has been done 1000 times since then. It is supposed to be a comedy, but it is actually much deeper and more genuine than it appears at first glance.
6. Major League - I feel like this movie should actually be higher on my list. But I think that it hasn't aged nearly as well as some of the other movies on this list, the comedy itself doesn't always hold it's weight anymore. But it's still a great movie and I would watch it any time.
5. The Natural - Tremendous story, just pure fiction and it's great writing. I actually think this is one of Robert Redford's worst acting performances and he's still fantastic. The editing in this movie is abysmal.
4. Field Of Dreams - Again I feel like I should have this movie higher on my list, it's a good movie with solid acting and in interesting and engaging plot. I think I may have done this list too fast...
3. The Sandlot - This movie has universal appeal. People who may never have seen this still mouth out "FOR - EV - ER" because they've seen other people do it. The story is fantastic and the scene where the kid fakes drowning to make out with the lifeguard is one of the great scenes in kid's movie history, the scene where they beat the rich kids and the catcher is talking trash is the best sports scene in kid's movie history. I feel like maybe this movie should be a little bit lower on my list, possibly supplanted by Field Of Dreams, the problem is that the first time I saw Field I was incredibly sick. Every kid wishes they had a nickname as cool as Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez.
2. A League of Their Own - Tom Hanks should have served two years for Grand Theft for his role in this movie. He steals the movie and turns an ok movie into one of the best baseball movies of all time. "There's No Crying in Baseball" and his subsequent diatribe is one of the most quotable sports lines ever. The movie is pretty darn predictable and you can cut out the beginning and the end for all I care but the scenes with Hanks are priceless. David Strathairn is also fantastic in this movie.
1. Bull Durham - May very well be the best sports movie of all time. It is quotable, funny, deep, and knowledgeable as hell about baseball. The story, the acting, the transitions, it's all there. It's not a love story, and it's not a pure sports movie, it's a movie about life. And to keep it off your list of the 10 best baseball movies of all time is stupid.
