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Batter Up! The Best Baseball Movies
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We love baseball, and so does Hollywood. What makes it so appealing? Is it the natural drama of the game, the symmetry of the diamond, the big stars on the field? In the end, baseball is a personal sport that carries unique meaning and memories for each of its fans. Here are TheMan's top baseball movies that invoke the true nostalgia of Opening Day:
Bull Durham (Orion - 1988)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
Few of us have reveled in the earnestness of a AAA minor league ballgame, but when you ask most people what their favorite baseball movie is, Bull Durham invariably comes up on top. A little bit romance, a little bit sports flick, Costner pioneered his typecasting as a ballplayer in this film as an aging catcher reminiscing about "the show." Full of old fashioned values ("I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch...."), Costner's Crash Davis is an enduring hero.
Eight Men Out (Orion - 1988)
Starring: John Cusack, John Mahoney, Michael Rooker, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D.B. Sweeney
It's probably the biggest scandal in baseball history: The infamous "Black Sox" of 1918, wherein the underpaid White Sox threw the World Series in exchange for a big payoff. D.B. Sweeney is center stage as "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who may or may not have been innocent of wrongdoing (though director John Sayles makes the case for the former). With labor and mob wranglings galore, Eight Men Out is more than a baseball movie: It's also a gripping tale of a tragic loss of innocence.
Major League (Warner Brothers - 1989)
Starring: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Margaret Whitton, Rene Russo, Wesley Snipes
What are you expecting, that every baseball flick will be a thoughtful meditation on baseball, life, the universe, and everything? How about Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Corbin Bernsen as cut-ups on the Cleveland Indians, who roar from last place to first, cracking jokes all the way (largely at the expense of former stripper/new owner Margaret Whitton). Good clean fun, although Major League is now the victim of two unfortunate sequels that are best relegated to single-A ball.
Field of Dreams (Universal - 1989)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones
"If you build it, he will come." For any self-respecting baseball fan, those words will send shivers up his spine. The grand conflagration of every baseball movie ever made, Field of Dreams gives us Costner (again) as a farmer who hears a voice from the sky telling him to rip up his crops and plonk a diamond down instead. Also starring Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson. Rumor has it some people actually make pilgrimages to this Iowa cornfield to spend the night beneath the stars.
For Love of the Game (Universal - 1999)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston, John C. Reilly
Last year, Costner took the field a third time as Billy Chapel, a retiring pitcher who finds himself in a battle to throw a perfect game as the crown jewel of a lackluster career. For Love of the Game, much like Bull Durham, speaks to matters of the heart as well as matters of the field, and Kelly Preston makes for quite a catch. But the real drama is right there on the diamond, and Chapel's final game is the best I've ever seen.
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