'The Winning Team'
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 ...
I didn’t notice, but those Naked Gun movies had a lot of oddities in them. That’s what made them fun.
You are right about FTLOTG.
It is a chick flick and total crap.
Actually, it was a redemption film about a son who regretted rebelling using new-age peace-love-dope-Hare-Krishna claptrap against his father, who had died before he could apologize.
He finally grew up and the Field of Dreams allowed him to reconcile with his dad.
I don't know what film you watched.
Had a band in Milwaukee, Methyl Ethyl and The Ketones. Amy Madigan was Methyl Ethyl. Great band in the MOI tradition.
All started with getting rid of the Shaw of Iran.
I didn’t like any of these really. The one with tom hanks rosie and madonna i did like. That was before i hated them.
Phil Alden Robinson injecting his left-wing BS into a movie where it had absolutely no place takes away from the story. But Horner’s score more than makes up for it. Overall, it’s a lovely picture.
Yes that was a surprisingly good movie considering how much crap and how many sluts were in it.
I thought the one who was supposed to be a beauty queen really was a beauty and the actress who played her was also pretty athletic.
I thought “Moneyball” balanced a love for the game with the economic realities of the sport perfectly. It’s a terrific film, and one of the finest performances of Brad Pitt’s career.
I like “Field of Dreams” and “The Natural” very much, as well as “Bull Durham”. My, hard to believe that back then, you could go to a movie and not be deafened by the loud volume at the theatres and also not be assaulted by ultra-liberal Hollyweird propaganda.
My only problem with “Field of Dreams” was the casting of Kevin Costner. Not that he did a lousy job, but in reality he was just into his teens at the end of the 1960s. I would have liked to have seen John Ritter or Bill Murray or William Hurt or even Harrison Ford in the Ray Kinsella role.
A couple of earlier ball flicks not mentioned here yet, but worth a look “Rhubarb” from 1951 and “Fear Strikes Out” from 1957. Very intense performances from Anthony Perkins and Karl Malden (makes the jerk father Vic Morrow played in “The Bad News Bears” look like a real sweetheart by comparison). “Bad News Bears” another favourite ball flick of mine.
I actually read The Natural for a Lit class in College.
One of my favorite movies. Especially good role for Paul Douglas.
Also enjoy the original “Angels in the Outfield’”; also with Douglas.
Didn’t care for the remake.
Sand Lot is this best baseball movie.
“Individual achievement!”
'The Winning Team'
Good movie.
‘Angels in the Outfield’ - OF COURSE the original
Fun movie.
‘Pride of the Yankees’ - duh Lou Gehrig. Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig.
Great movie, although when I saw it my Dad was a Milwaukee Braves and Henry Aaron fan. Ergo, so was I. The Twins had first come to Minnesota, and I hated the Yankees like the Devil hates Holy Water.
Pride of the Yankees would be irresistible tonight if TCM showed it.
‘The Perfect Game’
I'm not familiar with it.
I loved the highlights, like the runner getting eaten by a lion and the outfielder getting decapitated at the fence with Mel Allen going, “How about that!”
It didn't make the list because it's not baseball. Baseball is a team sport:
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