With the Golden Globes just handed out and the Oscars still on the horizon, look for more lists like these.
Jeff Euston over at Baseball Prospectus offered his top ten faves, including some unusual titles such as Brewster’s Millions and Rookie of the Year.
This prompted movie buff Rob Neyer to submit this one, which includes Fever Pitch (meh, imho) and “Anything from the ’40s or ’50s with real major leaguers in cameo roles.”
Well, I might as well put in my two cents:
- Eight Men Out: Some pretty good athletic performances from seemingly non-athletic actors.
- A League of Their Own, which deserves a lot of credit for bring the AAGPBL to renewed national attention.
- Bull Durham, because it’s fun, dammit.
- Damn Yankees, because “You Gotta Have Heart.”
- Bang the Drum Slowly, starring Michael Moriarty, grandson of a big leaguer
- The Pride of the Yankees (primitive CGI at its worst)
- It Happens Every Spring. Paul Douglas, who plays Ray Miland’s sidekick, Monk Lanigan, also appeared in the original version of Angels in the Outfield, as well as manager of a baseball team in The Twilight Zone episode, “The Mighty Casey,” and in an uncredited role in Rhubarb (which, in turn, featured Leonard Nimoy as a member of the Brooklyn Loons).
- Tale Me Out to the Ball Game
- Field of Dreams
- The Monty Stratton Story
is available on Amazon.com,
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“Long Gone” is one of my favorites, but it was an HBO release and never got much publicity. I have a VHS copy and can’t find a DVD. Dermot Mulroney plays a young Class D player, William Peterson (of CSI fame) as the player-manager and Virginia Madsen as the town’s baseball Annie. Really enjoyable (and the book by Paul Hemphill is also excellent).
Agreed. There were a few pretty fair made-for-TV baseball movies back in the day.
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