Long Gone

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

More cold stove trivia -- MLB just rated the Top 25 baseball movies of all time. Top 10 are predictable, with most worth another look: Bull Durham, League of Their Own, Field of Dreams, Eight Men Out, The Natural, Major League...

Best Baseball Movies of All Time

WWW.MLB.COM

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Baseball is older than the movies themselves, and the first baseball movies featured well-recognized baseball players as the stars themselves; in many ways, they were our first movie stars. "Right Off the Bat," widely considered the first baseball flick ever made, came out in 1915, the same year as the

 

Personally, I'd rate The Sandlot, Bad News Bears, and The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings up there with the Kostner classics.

 

But by the time they reach the 20s they're pushing it, with Rookie of the Year and Angels in the Outfield. As usual on almost all of these lists, one that's nowhere to be found is Long Gone, made in 1987 for HBO. Is it because so many younger viewers have never even seen it? If you haven't, check it out on youtube and count how many ways it's "paralleled" by Bull Durham in 1988.

 

One of my favorite Long Gone lines is after the KKK stop the team bus and demand they give up star player Joe Louis Brown, code-named Jose Luis Brown and supposedly from Venezeula. A teammate instead suggests a caucasian player: "Let'em hang Whizner -- he's only batting .179..."

 

What's your favorite baseball movie? Let's go, Stogies!

Edited December 28, 2019 by 5GoldGloves:OF,75

[notin]

The Sandlot tops the list, despite my knowing Babe Ruth did not have any teammates who looked like James Earl Jones, if you get my drift.

 

Bull Durham was great. Major League was a complete ripoff of Bull Durham. You just know that movie pitch was “Why don’t we make a movie with the characters from Bull Durham, but in the majors?”

 

A severely underrated baseball movie is “Little Big League.”

[Bellhorn04]

None.

[fxkatt]

Despite the miscasting of Tony Perkins as Jimmy Piersall, "Fear Strikes Out" may be my best. At least it should be in the top ten, given some of the crap that's there.

[notin]

Despite the miscasting of Tony Perkins as Jimmy Piersall, "Fear Strikes Out" may be my best. At least it should be in the top ten, given some of the crap that's there.

 

Despite the subject matter, I would have put “61*” a lot higher. Even with the horrible casting of Anthony Michael Hall as Whitey Ford...

[Bellhorn04]

Weirdly enough I think Fever Pitch is one of the only baseball movies I've ever truly enjoyed.

 

Bad News Bears was great at the time.

[Bellhorn04]

It's really hard to make a good movie or novel that revolves around sports.

 

The original of The Longest Yard might be the best one, but that also revolved around prison, obviously.

 

The best sports novel ever is North Dallas Forty. The movie was barely adequate, although Nick Nolte was excellent.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Obviously, it helps when a movie resonates with a viewer (or book with a reader). When I read The Natural in high school I thought it was the coolest novel because I recognized all the nods to actual anecdotes from baseball history.

 

I could relate to a lot of The Sandlot -- the era, being a new kid, getting accepted into a neighborhood group through baseball. Bad News Bears was more like my late-teenage years; we had summer league coaches who bought for us at the packy after games and also jumped into an onfield brawl. Yikes.

[jad]

Despite the miscasting of Tony Perkins as Jimmy Piersall, "Fear Strikes Out" may be my best. At least it should be in the top ten, given some of the crap that's there.

 

Just out of curiosity, why do you think T.Perkins was miscast? He actually was pretty good at playing crazy people: Psycho (obviously), but also Kafka's Trial. I'm sure there are others. The psychology behind FStOut seems pretty dated, but I don't know of any sports books/films of the time that were comparable.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

I'm gonna guess it isn't that Perkins didn't look like a whack job, but because he didn't look like he could whack a fastball...

[mvp 78]

Air Bud Seventh Inning Fetch.

[Bellhorn04]

Air Bud Seventh Inning Fetch.

 

Perfect.

[mvp 78]

Perfect.

 

It is pretty amazing that a dog records the final out of a world series in a movie which helps propel the real team to win the world series in the following year! Rally monkey? It was all about Buddy Fram and he's vastly underappreciated for it.

[jad]

A musical, although a movie version was also made: "Damn Yankees."

[notin]

Air Bud Seventh Inning Fetch.

 

I will agree that it was very questionable why it was largely ignored by the Academy, the same snobbish boors who refused to acknowledge the cinematic masterpiece known as “Most Valuable Primate”...

[notin]

It is pretty amazing that a dog records the final out of a world series in a movie which helps propel the real team to win the world series in the following year! Rally monkey? It was all about Buddy Fram and he's vastly underappreciated for it.

 

 

It does make me wonder about Disney’s fascination with making animals compete in the world of professional sports. One can only wonder what pitches they turned down. “OK this is a story about a chipmunk who becomes a professional wrestler on the WWE circuit. It’s called ‘The Iron Cheeks’. Whaddaya think? Huh? $200 million to start?”

[mvp 78]

I will agree that it was very questionable why it was largely ignored by the Academy, the same snobbish boors who refused to acknowledge the cinematic masterpiece known as “Most Valuable Primate”...

 

The big problem with the MVP franchise is that the first movie is buried by the awesomeness of Most Xtreme Primate which came a few years later and was a far superior movie.

[mvp 78]

It does make me wonder about Disney’s fascination with making animals compete in the world of professional sports. One can only wonder what pitches they turned down. “OK this is a story about a chipmunk who becomes a professional wrestler on the WWE circuit. It’s called ‘The Iron Cheeks’. Whaddaya think? Huh? $200 million to start?”

 

Who are you to doubt Russell Madness?

[mvp 78]

I will agree that it was very questionable why it was largely ignored by the Academy, the same snobbish boors who refused to acknowledge the cinematic masterpiece known as “Most Valuable Primate”...

 

I will say that 1996's Ed is just straight trash compared to the other movies mentioned.