I consider baseball to be the bastion of Americana. Although it’s history can be traced back to sports being played in England & France, the form that it’s played today originated in America and has been known as “America’s Pastime” ever since. I’ve been a big baseball fan since I was little. I’ve always played and participated in “individual” sports (i.e. Swimming and Tennis) where it’s you against the clock or you against one other person. Baseball is the only *team* sport that I’ve ever followed and loved (and, more importantly, understood) my whole life. Most of my family are Angels fans, but I am a life-long, die hard, card carrying(literally) member of the Red Sox nation. My dad’s side of the family is from Boston and my grandpa, who died when I was a baby, was a huge Red Sox fan. Everyone always tells me we had a bond and even though I don’t remember much about him, I feel that my Red Sox love is directly because of him.
Over the years the “baseball movie” has become a staple of American cinema. Baseball plays a different role in every movie, but there are essential things you see in almost one. The montages, for instance, is probably the biggest. The “losing or winning” montage, usually paired with the hitting, catching or sliding into home montage. Another classic montage is the “newspaper/magazine article” montage. So among the pantheon of baseball movies, these are MY top 5….Let’s play ball!
1. The Sandlot (1993)
This one had to be #1 for me mainly, yes, because of it’s sentimental value to me. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, be on everyone’s greatest baseball movies list…cause it should. It’s a fantastic movie about where the love of baseball begins for most people: when we’re kids. And in The Sandlot we follow the timeline of a boy who knows nothing of the game, but falls in love with it. I’ve never been a 10 year old boy, but I know that this movie captures childhood and summertime in California pretty perfectly. And, to be honest, it kind of made me want to be a 10 year old boy, instead of a 10 year old girl when I first saw it. Hell, it STILL makes me want to be a 10 year old boy. Is that weird?
2. Bull Durham (1988)
This movie is #1 on every other “greatest baseball movies” list I’ve ever read. And I totally understand why. Definitely the best “date” movie about sports ever. Apparently purists love it because it gets the Minor Leagues pretty perfectly. I know very little about minor league baseball, so I’ll take their word for it. But it does make sense, because the writer/director played minor league ball for a while. It gives you a lot of inside stuff about the game (i.e. what goes on when the catcher and the coach go up to the pitchers mound, what goes through a players head when he steps up to the plate, etc.) which is great for someone who worships the game, but has never played it on a team in any regard. Side note: I, truthfully, hadn’t seen this movie ‘till a few weeks ago and was told I “wasn’t allowed” to write this blog until I had. So there ya go.
3. Field of Dreams (1989)
Why is Kevin Costner in so many baseball movies?! Anyways, this movie is great because it’s more about the sentimentality of the game, instead of the game itself. Ray Kinsella (Costner) builds a field and, well, you know what happens. SPOILER ALERT!!!! They come. They being dead baseball players, including Kinsella’s dad that he didn’t really like too much. But then they play catch and everyone cries, including me. I’m, obviously, not a boy, but this tugged on my “dad” heartstrings too, because I am pretty close to my dad and he helped spawn my love for baseball.
4. A League of Their Own (1992)
This is a part of baseball history that no I know has any connection with because it came and went before we were born. But it was a pretty important niche in sports history. And I love it because it shows that women can, and are, passionate about baseball (and sports, in general) just as much as men. It has all the baseball movies classics, but it throws in a glimpse into women’s suffrage and what they had to do to be accepted. It’s easily one of Tom Hank’s greatest roles and he has some great, great lines that he delivers flawlessly. Of course, everyone remembers “There’s no crying in baseball!”
5. The Natural (1984)
This is another “classic” that I only recently watched for the first time. I loved it and I think what I liked best was that it covered a lot of cinematic ground. it’s a romance and a fable, showing the deep passion for the game and the more-than-human personas that ballplayers sometimes take on. It also takes on some noir elements like the old guy coming back for a last chance, a couple of femme fatales and some conniving bad guys aiming to take down the good guy. It may be overthe top sometimes (like, the famous last scene of him running the bases with the exploding lights) but hey, isn’t baseball over the top sometimes, too?
