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'Favorite' Baseball Movies ... And The 10 Best

by Rob Neyer • Jan 17, 2012 1:52 PM EST

Our friends at Baseball Prospectus have a new piece subtitled "10 Favorite Baseball Movies of All Time".

They've got numbers on them, which might make you think it's a list of their 10 favorite baseball movies, ranked.

It's not. It's 10 favorites, each selected by a different BP staffer. Which is how you wind up reading about Brewster's Millions.

After the jump, precisely because nobody asked, a list of my actual 10 favorite baseball movies...

Star-divide

1. Bull Durham
2. Moneyball
3. The Bad News Bears (1976)
4. The Natural
5. Eight Men Out
6. Fever Pitch
7. Sugar
8. 61*
9. Damn Yankees
10. Anything from the '40s or '50s with real major leaguers in cameo roles.

And no, I still haven't seen "Major League". This winter, maybe.

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Rob

Field of Dreams, nowhere on your list?? Shame!

@OneJay76

by NumberSeven on Jan 17, 2012 1:56 PM EST reply actions  

Field Of Dreams isn't about baseball.

It’s about Heaven.

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring". ~Rogers Hornsby

by extavernmouse on Jan 19, 2012 2:35 AM EST up reply actions  

A League of Their Own?

It doesn’t crack your top 10?

Probably my second favorite after Bull Durham.

by BEEarl on Jan 17, 2012 1:57 PM EST reply actions  

was never a huge fan

until watching it again over the holidays (I think it was on AMC about 57 times). just damn funny and fortunately unlike her brother, penny marshall seems to know when to show some emotional restraint. and John Lovitz absolutely kills – “well then, this would be more, wouldn’t it?”

by gator32301 on Jan 18, 2012 8:37 AM EST up reply actions  

"penny marshall seems to know when to show some emotional restraint"

She what in a who now? That was one of the most cheaply sentimental movies I’ve ever seen.

Not actually affiliated with whygavs.

by WHYG Zane Smith on Jan 18, 2012 10:35 AM EST up reply actions  

The extras on the DVD are worth a viewing

Extra footage of the real girls — both newsreal stuff from their playing days and modern stuff from the actual reunion.

by J0SER on Jan 18, 2012 9:04 PM EST up reply actions  

I don't like "Field of Dreams".

I do enjoy “A League of Their Own” … just not enough to make my top 10. Top dozen, probably.

by Rob Neyer on Jan 17, 2012 2:01 PM EST reply actions  

and as much as I want to rag on your choice of Fever Pitch- it was a decent movie (couldn’t watch the last 20-30 mins though- yankee fan here).

@OneJay76

by NumberSeven on Jan 17, 2012 2:25 PM EST up reply actions  

That's ok

This trailer for a “sequel” to Field of Dreams (from last summer) is more entertaining than the original anyway.

by J0SER on Jan 18, 2012 9:22 PM EST up reply actions  

why haven't you seen Major League?

Wondering if there is some defining reason why you haven’t seen Major League? Myself, I refuse to see the Dukes of Hazzard because I believe it was disrespectful to the TV show of my youth, but there is no such obvious (to me, at least) reason against Major League. It may not hold up as well nowadays, especially with that nutcase Charlie Sheen, but there are some very funny scenes in it. So, what’s the deal if you don’t mind my asking?

by Chad MacNeil on Jan 17, 2012 2:01 PM EST reply actions  

It's basically a remake of Slapshot

Without Paul Newman or the Hanson Brothers?

by J0SER on Jan 18, 2012 8:57 PM EST up reply actions  

Good question.

I bought the DVD, or someone sent it to me, at least a year ago. I think now I’m just being stubborn. Also, maybe I’m afraid that once I see it I’ll have to do a write-up.

And I don’t like having to do stuff.

by Rob Neyer on Jan 17, 2012 2:09 PM EST up reply actions  

Haven't you...

used a Pedro Cerrano reference in your writings before? I may be getting you confused with someone else.

by RogoRooter on Jan 17, 2012 2:47 PM EST up reply actions  

Well, now

I don’t want Rob to watch it. It’s a thing now. Now when I watch it, I’ll think of Rob flipping around, seeing “Major League” on the channel bar, and flipping away really quickly before it shows up on the screen.

Rob’s adult league baseball career is over, I understand anyway, so he can’t keep yelling “Give him the heater, Ricky!” and “What’s with this olé bullshit” from centerfield, which is fun and surely annoying to others.

by John G. Blanchard on Jan 17, 2012 3:13 PM EST up reply actions  

For shame.

How are “Field of Dreams” and “The Sandlot” not on the list?

by Chris Spurlock on Jan 17, 2012 2:55 PM EST reply actions  

Well, just maybe...

because neither of them were particularly good movies.
I have a real tough time wading through all the sappiness in Field of Dreams.

by Tom Ruane on Jan 18, 2012 7:03 AM EST up reply actions  

Moneyball won't age well

Moneyball is OK, I guess, but it’s not much of a baseball movie. It’s a Pitt/Sorkin vehicle, and not one of their better ones.

And Field of Dreams belongs. Bill (not Ray) Kinsella is (lower case) god.

-Ray Charbonneau
Author, "Chasing the Runner's High"

by rcharbon on Jan 17, 2012 2:55 PM EST reply actions  

Movie vs. book

I’m not the only one to prefer the movie “Fields of Dreams” to the book “Shoeless Joe,” am I?

The book had some odd ancillary characters – the old farmer, Ray’s twin brother and his girlfriend (also named Annie) – and some soft-core descriptions of Ray’s wife that I thought were unnecessary. And the build-up to Ray’s meeting with his father could be seen from the moon.

The screenwriters dis a great job transforming a decent book into an excellent movie, IMO.

by GBSimons on Jan 17, 2012 3:44 PM EST up reply actions  

It's not Kinsella's strongest work

But I thought the book was good — I read it long before it was turned into a movie, however, and haven’t read it since, so I don’t know what I’d think of it now. I still have it (signed, first edition hardcover, probably worth something on EBay) so I really have no excuse for not reading it again one of these days.

by J0SER on Jan 18, 2012 9:03 PM EST up reply actions  

Totally agree re Field of Dreams - leave it off

I am a big Sandlot fan, but as my own kids have gotten older I don’t like it quite as heatedly as I did before. Still, I’ve seen it multiple times. Same for League of their Own. And I know I’ll watch these movies again in the future.

I wasn’t able to get through Field of Dreams a second time. Cliched. Sentimental in a way that seems false to me. A James Earl Jones sentimental speech is a powerful spice, sometimes best used in moderation. My son was just writing a high school essay about the excellent Satchel Paige bio Satchel Paige: Life and Times of an American Legend. Paige spent the best years of his life as a baseball player when baseball also represented something bad about America, and he knew it and felt it in his heart. I can be sentimental about the past but I can’t wish that "it could be [that way] again. Hanks’ “It is supposed to be hard” outburst tells us more about baseball than Field of Dreams, but maybe I’m more of an inside focussed fan rather than an outside focussed fan.

by Mirror on Jan 17, 2012 4:13 PM EST reply actions  

P.S. Bad New Bears yes!

I think adult fans forget sometimes that the vast majority of baseball games in the US and the rest of the world are played by kids.

by Mirror on Jan 17, 2012 4:19 PM EST up reply actions   1 recs

And the 1976 original is the One True version

The Slingblade remake isn’t worth anyone’s time.

by J0SER on Jan 18, 2012 9:05 PM EST up reply actions  

No major problems with this list

I’ve never gotten into Bad News Bears that much, but I’m not vehemently against it. I did prefer The Rookie to almost everything on this list, thought it just stayed short of overdoing the sentiment. And apparently it falls to me to speak up for the oldish movie The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. Billy Dee Williams, a much younger and even somewhat svelte James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor on a Negro League-era barnstorming team. Some good stuff in there.

by CSFreeman on Jan 17, 2012 5:25 PM EST reply actions  

Money Ball

My favorite is easily Money Ball. Great film and great story

by Brew_Crew on Jan 17, 2012 5:55 PM EST via mobile reply actions  

Game 6

Nobody seems to know this little gem of a movie written by Don DeLillo. While not about baseball players, the game serves as the backdrop and driving force for everything that happens in the story. Michael Keaton is awesome as a playwright who lets his life unravel within the microcosm of a ballgame. Though I still don’t feel sorry for Red Sox fans. They probably deserve everything they get, as we all do.

by Curley Bender on Jan 17, 2012 6:05 PM EST reply actions  

No “Pride of the Yankees”? Gary Coopah!

"Don't you think it's strange that you'll make more money than President Hoover this year?"
"Why not? I had a better year than he did." - G.H. Ruth

366 Up, 366 Down

by Andrew GM on Jan 17, 2012 8:45 PM EST reply actions  

Never heard of Sugar, might have to check that out

Can you really disdain Brewster’s Millions and then praise a Jimmy Fallon movie?

No mention of The Natural? 61*? Soul of the Game?

I also have a soft spot for Mr. Baseball and Comrades of Summer, but I can understand them not making a top 10 list.

by MikeEl on Jan 17, 2012 11:55 PM EST reply actions  

My list would be something like:

1. Major League Seriously, Rob, just watch it already.
2. The Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Series Collector’s Edition, ’cause I was effin there!
3. The Rookie
4. Pride of the Yankees
5. The Natural
6. Moneyball
7. 61*
8. Eight Men Out
9. Bull Durham
10. Major League II

by Phrozen on Jan 18, 2012 12:37 AM EST reply actions  

Moneyball is #2??

It was a well made movie, but the second best baseball movie you’ve seen? I say remake this list a year from now and see if you feel the same way.

And you’re just being silly for not watching Major League.

by TMO_NYC on Jan 18, 2012 9:47 AM EST reply actions  

Bull Durham was great...

… but Major League was 1000 times better. Seriously. Uecker alone gives it top billing.

“Post game show’s brought to you by….Christ I can’t find it…to hell with it!”

Sometimes I tweet: @jmjonesjr

by AU_Jonesy on Jan 18, 2012 11:35 AM EST reply actions  

Gotta put in a vote for "Chasing 3000"

…what with being a Pirate fan and all…

________________________________
Free your ass and your mind will follow.

by cocktailsfor2 on Jan 18, 2012 12:19 PM EST reply actions  

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