Posted on 05/02/2015 4:38:18 PM PDT by PROCON
$212.46. That is what the average family of four spent at a major league ballgame last year. For the budget-conscious, that price tag makes it mighty tempting to stay home and enjoy the boys of summer on TV—either a live game or a classic baseball movie.
But watching some of the most fondly remembered films about the national passtime suggest that maybe both the game’s time and what made America great are passing. Here are five films that make the case.
5. Moneyball (2011)
Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill take the Oakland Athletics from a mediocre, going-broke franchise to a cash-cow winner by using analytical, evidence-based “sabermetrics.” The film garnered six Oscar nominations, critical acclaim, and box-office success. That’s terrible. Celebrating the “corporatization” of baseball is not a good thing. Sure, making money is a good thing. “Last season,” Forbes reports, “MLB saw gross revenues of over $8 billion, and the expectation is it will reach $10 billion within a year or two.”
But where is the gut, the intuition, the love of sport for sport’s sake that we learned from movies like The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Gary Cooper’s epic portrayal of the greatest star of baseball’s finest hour?
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
TCM had Pride 9 the Yankees on last weekend.
Pointless and silly.
And I pretty much like everything Eastwood does.
100% agreed!!!!!!!! The absolute best Major League Baseball thought/feeling ever put to paper by an author, player, former player or sportswriter! LONG time MLB junkie here still hoping for no more regular season inter league play. The come back of the 154 game schedule. No more playoffs. The American League Pennant Winner vrs. the National League Pennant Winner in the Series. Just like the old days..........I know, I’m a dinosaur!)
Good grief...no it didn’t. Your imagination must be off the charts.
There are lots of visual jokes in their movies. For example, in Airplane when he calls the Mayo Clinic the doctor is sitting at a desk. Behind him the shelves are lined with rows of jars of Helmans mayonnaise.
What? No “Rhubarb” or the original “Angels in the Outfield”?
And I have a soft spot for the Joe E. Brown baseball trilogy of Alibi Ike, Elmer the Great, and Fireman, Save My Child!, all of which I used to enjoy with my Dad.
The less known movies that you and others have mentioned are equally popular among many baseball fans.
61*, for example, brings back fond memories of watching Saturday games on TV with my Dad.
That’s like putting Die Hard on a favourite Christmas movies list. :)
Costner was 34 when field of dreams came out in 1989. What does the fact that he was 15 in 1970 have to do with a movie that came out 20 years later?
I can’t see John Ritter in that role at all.
Author is chemically impaired. Field of Dreams and The Natural are fantastic films.
I would argue that Field of Dreams isn’t really about baseball, but has baseball as a backdrop, really.
“Never saw “Moneyball”... actually I had never heard of it.”
I saw part of it, it was pretty good and actually rather interesting. It’s based on a true story. I don’t think it was well described here.
Another one that hubby loved was “Trouble with the Curve”, but hubby loves anything with Amy Adams.
“The one with tom hanks rosie and madonna i did like.”
“A League of their Own”
My daughter loved that movie. It was OK I thought. Isn’t Rosie O’Donnell in it?
LOL, a movie we saw before we hated the people in it!
“The Babe (1992): the perfect movie for John Goodman.”
He was great a Babe Ruth, but I really, really, really, really, really hated the end of that movie. It was that flick that made me realize that the goal of the Left with its infiltration of everything is to bring people to a feeling of despair. It was really a turning point for me watching that movie.
My only point being, with all due respect, was that I thought Costner was a little young to play someone who rebelled against his father in the 1960s. That is why I would have been curious to have seen how Ritter, Hurt, Murray, or even Ford would have played the role as they would have been at about that coming of age in the 1960s period.
Vin Scully's voice intertwined with the movie, sets up a GREAT movie. Fun and touching. Have watched it countless times.
Missing from the list is "61". Roger Maris went through much more than I ever knew, as did Mantle. Grew up with Mantle & Maris, with "the Mick" always being my favorite player.
That said, the only movie on the list I really didn't care for was "Field Of Dreams".
I’m glad I read your post, cuz I was going to post about you and your (lady) baseball endeavors.
What a great feel good movie! (Now I feel good just like a liberal :-)
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