Fall Classics: The Ten Greatest Baseball Movies of All Time

 

With the possible exception of boxing, no sport translates as well to the silver screen as baseball. Try and name ten great sports movies without including a baseball film; now make a list of great baseball movies and see if you can limit it to ten. See what I mean? Here's one man's list of the ten best baseball movies, in no particular order.

Sugar (2009) - This little-seen gem is a fabulous commentary on the immigrant experience in today's America, filtered through the lens of a young Dominican ballplayer whisked from the cane fields of his homeland to pitch for a minor league team amidst the corn fields of Iowa. The movie takes an unexpected turn about halfway through, but it feels true throughout; true to the characters, true to the story, and true to the game. 

Soul of the Game (1996) - An underrated HBO film chronicling the intersecting lives of three of the Negro League's biggest stars: Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson, on the eve of Robinson's history-making Brooklyn Dodger contract. Integrating the majors was obviously the right thing to do; but the mass exodus of black players that followed Robinson to the big leagues all but destroyed a rich history of great baseball. Mykelti Williamson shines as Gibson, the 'black Babe Ruth' who died of a brain tumor before realizing his dream of playing in the big leagues alongside his Negro League teammates.

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) - An offbeat little film, the baseball is almost incidental in this adaptation of Mark Harris' novel. Michael Moriarty and a young Robert Deniro star as teammates coming to terms with Deniro's terminal illness over the course of one long, tragic season. "Everybody knows everybody is dying; that's why people are as good as they are." 

61* (2001) - The Mark McGwire framing sequence may seem a little ill-advised in hindsight, but Billy Crystal's love letter to the heroes of his childhood is perfect in every other way. Barry Pepper channels Roger Maris' tortured soul as we watch him chain smoke and lose his hair in pursuit of the hallowed record that no one wanted him to break. Thomas Jane shines as the hard-drinking Mickey Mantle, the public's choice to pass Babe Ruth. The heart of the movie, though, lies in the friendship between the two teammates, two men who could not be more different on or off the field, but are now linked together for all-time in the record books. 

Pride of the Yankees (1942) - Even if you've never seen the movie, you know the speech: "Today (day-day), I consider myself (self-self) the luckiest man (man-man) on the face of the earth (earth-earth). . ." Lou Gehrig was a baseball star right out of Central Casting, with his Ivy League education and classic good looks. Who better to play him in this biopic than Gary Cooper? A romance as much as a baseball picture,with the heavenly Teresa Wright as Gehrig's wife Eleanor. Gehrig''s real-life Yankee teammates Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel, and Mark Koenig appear as wooden carvings of themselves. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Everyone sing, together now: "I'll be loving you. . . allllllways. . ." 

Bull Durham (1988) - Kevin Costner's first appearance on this list (and no, For Love of the Game will most definitely NOT be the other). Writer-Director Ron Shelton's sentimental (yet unglamorous) love letter to the bush leagues remains the best depiction of minor league baseball ever. Irreverent, funny, and dead sexy, Bull Durham made Costner a star and single-handedly sparked record-breaking attendance numbers at minor league parks around the country. Costner's game is pretty good; Susan Sarandon's is even better.

The Bad News Bears (1976)  - The original Bad News Bears film (not to be confused with either its less-inspired sequels or the tepid 2005 Billy Bob Thornton remake) remains the laugh-out-loud funniest baseball movie ever made. It also ushered in a whole new subgenre: dirty talking kids. Bobb'e J. Thompson won raves in 2008's Role Models, but Chris Barnes did it first as Tanner Boyle 32 years before. The Bears' collection of misfit kids also drew the template for every team of lovable losers that followed them: The fat kid! The nerd! The ESL mute! The tough biker kid (who smokes!)! The GIRL! And the baseball scenes are pretty good, too, even if you can never quite figure out how Kelly Leak gets an at-bat in seemingly every inning. 

Eight Men Out (1988) - John Sayles adapted Eliot Asinof's definitive account of the darkest days in baseball history with his usual impeccable eye for time and place. Sayles takes you right into the lives of the infamous 1919 Chicago 'Black' Sox, and shows you just how easy it was for gamblers to fix the World Series. John Cusack stars as sympathetic third baseman Buck Weaver, with DB Sweeney bringing a sweet naivete to his portrayal of Shoeless Joe Jackson. But the player to watch is David Straitharn's heartbreaking Eddie Cicotte. A powerful, heartbreaking film. "Say it ain't so, Joe. . ."

Field of Dreams (1989) - Baseball. Fathers and sons. America. Even if you've seen this one a thousand times, I dare you to watch Kevin Costner play catch with his father without a lump in your throat. This is the finest performance of Costner's long career, but Burt Lancaster steals the show as Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, the man who never got that one at-bat in the big leagues but somehow never regretted it.

The Natural (1984) - Fans of Bernard Malamud's dark 1952 novel may take issue with this one, but director Barry Levinson and star Robert Redford deliver the most beautiful baseball imagery ever captured on film. The whole movie looks and feels like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life; check out the impossibly-perfect natural lighting as Redford's Roy Hobbs strikes out Babe Ruth analogue The Whammer at a midwestern county fair. See Hobbs obliterate the scoreboard clock at Chicago's Wrigley Field; Watch him circle the bases in a shower of electric sparks after crushing the pennant-winning homer. The Judge, Memo, Pop Fisher, Max Mercy, Bump Bailey -- larger-than-life characters from a bygone era. And that divine Randy Newman score that evokes the ghosts of Aaron Copeland and Scott Joplin. A feast for the eyes, and the ears, and the heart.