Baseball Movie Box Score: 15 Movies To Revisit This Season
by Brian Tallerico

5. TRIPLE OFF THE WALL IN CENTER

The Natural (1984)
Starring: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey, Darren McGavin, William Brimley, and Richard Farnsworth
Written by: Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry
Directed by: Barry Levinson

Movies don't get much more wide-eyed and romanticized than The Natural. Barry Levinson is so clearly in love with the magic of the game that it's infectious. But you need to go into The Natural with the right mind-set. Understand that hardcore baseball fans who remember the players of their youth through rose-colored hindsight don't just place their sports heroes on pedestals, they practically turn them into legends. Those kinds of fans truly believe that a bat can be cut from a lightning-struck tree and can turn an unknown into a superstar. In many ways, The Natural offers up a vision of Heaven as a place where every swing is perfect and every throw is on the mark, where every day is sunny and 75, and the only question is whether or not to play two. With its storybook ending of raining lights, The Natural has been criticized for being too preposterous, but sometimes that's what baseball fans love about their sport. From Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit home run to Curt Schilling's bloody sock, there is magic in the game, and The Natural taps that side of the sport well enough to land at third base.

4. STAND UP TRIPLE

The Pride of the Yankees(1942)
Starring: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Walter Brennan, Babe Ruth, and Dan Duryea
Written by: Jo Swerling & Herman J. Mankiewicz
Directed by: Sam Wood

You could easily wave this one around to home plate, but just the fact that most people aren't watching movies older than the two Democratic Presidential nominees means that we'll keep it at third for now. The Pride of the Yankees has become such an influential film in the sports movie genre that you can feel its sentimental touch in nearly every sports movie since... and not just baseball. The Pride of the Yankees is so integral to the genre that you probably know the movie even if you haven't seen it. You've undoubtedly heard the line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," or have a vague memory of a player visiting a crippled boy and promising to hit two home runs in one game. This is the movie where it all started. Ranked #22 by the AFI on their list of the most inspiring movies in American cinema (It's a Wonderful Life was number one) and nominated for TEN Academy Awards, including Best Picture, The Pride of the Yankees continues to inspire an entire genre over six decades after it was first released. That's definitely worthy of a stand up triple and, if we're in a classic movie mood, we're waving it home.

3. HOME RUN

The Bad News Bears (1976)
Starring: Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal, Chris Barnes, Vic Morrow, Jackie Earle Haley, Joyce Van Patten, and Quinn Smith
Written by: Bill Lancaster
Directed by: Michael Ritchie

Walter Matthau hit one of many career home runs in a movie that any good baseball fan should see each season. You can keep the grating Linklater/Thornton remake, we'll take the original Bad News Bears every time. For an entire generation, Bad News Bears was a movie that marked the transition from kids flicks to something a little darker. Raise your hand if your parents let you watch Bad News Bears at a ridiculously young age, thinking it was just another kids movie. Bad News Bears proved that movies about kids could feature adult oriented dark humor. One of the taglines told the story - "The coach is waiting for his next beer. The pitcher is waiting for her first bra. The team is waiting for a miracle. Consider the possibilities." Bad News Bears is one of the greatest underdog movies ever made - baseball flick or not - and continues to slide in under the radar for kids worldwide. Think about this: putting profanity and even ethnic slurs in the mouths of children and drinks in the hands of the people that watch them is something that you can't easily do in today's Hollywood. You certainly couldn't do it in a hit. Bad News Bears wasn't just ahead of its time, we're still not there yet.

2. INSIDE THE PARK HOME RUN

Field of Dreams (1989)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, Burt Lancaster, Timothy Busfield, Frank Whaley, and Gaby Hoffman
Written and Directed by: Phil Alden Robinson

Ask a dozen men what movie makes them cry, and half of them (at least) will likely say Field of Dreams. There's something about the father and son dynamic in this great film that can reduce even the most repressed man into a sobbing child. Field of Dreams recognizes that something as relatively disposable as a sport like baseball can be the most important thing in your life. It can not only save your family but give you a chance at redemption. There are plenty of movies on this list that play with the magic of baseball, but none get it quite as right as Field of Dreams. It's unquestionably cheesy, but it's all there in "If you build it, he will come." Baseball is a uniting force. Go to a field right now in any well-populated area, pick up a bat or a mitt, and someone will be there to join in or watch you hit the ball in a matter of minutes. Every day of every summer, there's someone rounding third and heading for home, and most of them don't even know why they're smiling from ear to ear. There's magic in this game, and Field of Dreams gets that absolutely right.

1. OUT OF THE PARK HOME RUN

Bull Durham (1988)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Robert Wuhl, and Trey Wilson
Written and Directed by: Ron Shelton

The three movies in the "top category" in the Baseball Movie Box Score all serve a different role in the sub-genre. Bad News Bears has the gritty realism of alcoholism, profanity, and laugh-out-loud humor. It's Ty Cobb or John Kruk, the crotch-grabbing, chew-spitting player on the team. Field of Dreams sees baseball as faith, something that can magically save your family and give your life meaning. Bull Durham falls perfectly ahead of the two. It's the best movie that's directly about the sport of baseball. Often portrayed as just a romantic comedy, Bull Durham gets SO much right about baseball, from the little things like the superstitions to the bigger issues of the game. It's one of the few movies that understands that the player behind you on your team's lineup is both your teammate and your competition. You can't win without him, but he could also steal your girl and climb up the ladder to the big show without you. And, all of the issues aside, Bull Durham has a brilliant, laugh-out-loud screenplay. We'll close the box score with the final line of the best baseball movie, courtesy of Annie Savoy (Sarandon), "Walt Whitman once said, 'I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.' You could look it up."