Favorite Baseball Movies / Documentaries

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by pilight

As an actor, Jackie is a fine baseball player

I saw that movie recently. I didn't think he was that bad.

[Ty Cobb]

The Naked Gun.

"It's Enrico Palazzo! He saved the Queen!"

[nyc75]

I'd love to watch Ken Burns' Baseball and Facing Nolan. I have already seen most of the movies.

[ownera]

What are your thoughts on the portrayal of baseball in movies, and have you ever watched Ken Burns' documentary series on the subject? Additionally, do you have any other baseball-related recommendations?

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by ownera

What are your thoughts on the portrayal of baseball in movies, and have you ever watched Ken Burns' documentary series on the subject? Additionally, do you have any other baseball-related recommendations?

Hollywood is about as accurate in depicting baseball as it is depicting everything else - not very. I'd say that the first reasonably accurate baseball movie was Bull Durham (1988), in large part because the screenwriter - Ron Shelton - was a former minor-league ballplayer himself.

Ken Burns's baseball documentary suffers, I think, from a flawed format. Burns's Civil War series was a huge success, so he figured he'd take the same format and use it for his baseball series. In the Civil War series, he'd take individuals, such as diarists Elisha Hunt Rhodes and Sam Watkins, and use them as representatives of the great mass of individuals who were part of that war. That made sense, as Burns couldn't tell the stories of hundreds of thousands of people in their own words.

Burns tried that in the baseball series by picking two clubs - the Red Sox and the Dodgers - as the "representative" ballclubs, as if the entire history of professional baseball could be boiled down to the stories of those two teams. The problem, though, is that, unlike in the Civil War series, Burns didn't need to deal with hundreds of thousands of teams. At most, he had to handle thirty. As a result, the series starts to look like the history of the Red Sox and the Dodgers when it didn't need to be so focused on those two clubs. Speaking personally as a fan of neither of those teams, it got annoying after a while to watch as all of baseball history was filtered through the lens of those franchises.

[cake00]

I've got to say, some of my favorite baseball movies are classics like "The Sandlot" and "Field of Dreams." They really capture the essence of the game and the nostalgia of playing ball with friends or sharing a special connection with the sport.

Of course, "Major League" is another one that's a total blast, with its humor and memorable characters. And who can forget "A League of Their Own" for its heartwarming portrayal of the women's baseball league during World War II?

There are so many great baseball movies out there, but these are some of the ones that stand out to me. ⚾🎥

[Amazin69]

No love at all for Bang the Drum Slowly? That's probably my number one. And not only because Michael Moriarty (grandson of George) based his characterization of Henry Wiggen on Tom Seaver, which is a bit different from Paul Newman's take in the original TV version.

(Of course, both baseball and the world were rather different by 1973 than they had been in 1956.)

"From here on in, I rag nobody." Aww.

[Cod]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

No love at all for Bang the Drum Slowly? That's probably my number one. And not only because Michael Moriarty (grandson of George) based his characterization of Henry Wiggen on Tom Seaver, which is a bit different from Paul Newman's take in the original TV version.

(Of course, both baseball and the world were rather different by 1973 than they had been in 1956.)

"From here on in, I rag nobody." Aww.

tbh, I've never seen the movie, but have read the book. I enjoyed the first book in the series, The Southpaw, a little more. I haven't read the third and fourth books from the series yet.

[frankparker]

I like Bull Durham and Moneyball
I saw a few other movies, but these too I liked the most

[kq76]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

9. Long Gone

I watched this again today. It really is such a good baseball movie! It's just too bad that it's apparently in rights hell and that's why we can't get a legit dvd or even blu-ray. The copy I watched I downloaded off of youtube so the quality was bad (360p), but thankfully after a few minutes in you don't really notice it. It's definitely also in my top 10 baseball movies of all-time, maybe top 5.

[Hageneezz]

I love Mr. Baseball

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A346E met Tapatalk

[Cod]

Originally Posted by Hageneezz

I love Mr. Baseball

Oh man, I haven't seen Mr. Baseball in decades (mid-90s). I need to watch it again.

[kq76]

WatchMojo's list that just came out today is pretty predictable, but it's also pretty decent. The movie I'm seeing getting mentioned the most in its comments as being missing is Hardball. I can't remember if I've seen it. I must have, but I guess it's time for a re-watch.

[Base_Coach]

Sorry that I am entering the board without any into,and that only a few will remember me from previous posts.


A little something about myself...
I live in the southeast United States but I am originally from New England.
I have loved baseball for the majority of my life and enjoy contributing to thoughtful & intelligent discussions regarding sports,pop culture, even politics, etc (especially baseball)
I'm 66 years old, semi retired and living my life along with my beautiful wife.


Anything else about me then you could simply ask (I will gladly answer).




God Bless,and Be Well...




Favorite Baseball Films:


1.) Eight Men Out
2.) Bull Durham
3.) The Natural
4.) Field of Dream
5.) The Nayural
6.) The Sandlot
7.) Moneyball
8.) Pride of the Yankees
9.) 61*
10.) Cobb

[Amazin69]

Just saw The Rookie the other night, and I'm surprised it gets no love here. Dennis Quaid does a damn fine job as Jim Morris, the early part of the film (with Quaid as a high school coach motivating a bunch of familiar faces from Buffy the Vampire Slayer guest spots [Chad Lindberg, Angelo Spizzirri [RIP], Ben Gonzalez]) to go win their division worked well to set up Morris chasing his own dream, and they didn't change the story so that Morris leads the Devil Rays to the World Series or anything such as that. I enjoyed it.

As a Mets fan, it was interesting to learn that Carlos Mendoza was on the 1999 Durham Bulls with Morris (I didn't even know that Carlos was a 1997 Met for 15 games!), and I was even more intrigued to find out that part of Morris's two-month continuation into 2000 was that he was the man who relieved Dwight Gooden in the only game of the "Hit Show!" 2000 D-Rays that I actually watched all the way through!

(April 27, 2000, Tampa Bay at Anaheim. Doc had absolutely nothing and the Angels were hitting the ball very hard…but many of them went right at somebody, and the Angels hit into enough DPs and ran themselves into Outs On Base that Gooden somehow lurched through five innings and escaped with the lead, and then the Devil-Fish had their hitting shoes on and tacked on some runs while Morris and future Mets Rick White and Roberto Hernandez brought the W home for Doc.)

All in all, rather enjoyable. With a good perfromance by Brian Cox as Morris's dad. And enough dirt for me to never want to move to Texas…

[Zagarath]

Here's my favorite movie, Bull Durham (1988).
A romantic comedy about life in the minor leagues of baseball, starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.