Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Rosie O'Donnell in the 1992 hit A League of Their Own.Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection/Everett Collection
This week is either the best or worst possible time to watch a baseball movie.
On the one hand, you have the greatest show on Earth playing out right in front of you every night, the Blue Jays determined to accomplish the impossible – who could possibly turn away from the screen to watch an entirely fictional throwdown? On the other hand, the high of a grand slam can’t so easily be shaken off, and sometimes you just need to keep the game going once the real players have left the field.
If the Jays bring it home this week (or possibly this weekend), here are the five best baseball movies of all time. And if the Dodgers somehow triumph, here are the five worst, just to keep the sorrow spiralling.
The Best
1. Bull Durham
Bull Durham starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.Joel Warren/MGM/Supplied
Writer-director Ron Shelton, reigning champion of the sports movie thanks to his work on everything from basketball (White Men Can’t Jump) to boxing (The Great White Hype) to golf (Tin Cup) to even more basketball (Blue Chips), brings it home here with grace and gusto.
The very best baseball movie ever made, Bull Durham triumphs on the expertise and respect of a filmmaker who knows the game better than most (Shelton was a minor-league infielder for the Baltimore Orioles’ farm system before turning to movies) and a cast that hits it out of the park with such effortless charm that it will make you forgive that cliche just there. Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, heck even Robert Wuhl all deserve statues in Cooperstown.
2. The Natural
Watching (or more likely re-watching) Barry Levinson’s 1984 drama is not only something of a mandatory act of mourning given the recent passing of star Robert Redford, but a cinematic pilgrimage for the baseball faithful and agnostic alike.
A tender but never saccharine epic all about the big show that doubles as a meditation on that juiciest of themes – the myth of the American Dream – The Natural is just that: a born hit.
3. A League of Their Own
Don’t let yourself get a stern talking-to from Tom Hanks: There ain’t no tears to be shed in placing Penny Marshall’s 1992 hit above some of the more perhaps expected baseball titles (including a few from Kevin “Mr. Baseball” Costner).
Still sharp after all these years, and loaded with an all-star roster of all-time performances (Lori Petty, we need you back!), A League of Their Own stormed into theatres much like its title characters took to the field: fearless and funny as hell.
4. Field of Dreams
If you only know its catchphrases, then a re-watch of Phil Alden Robinson’s film might strike the contemporary moviegoer as incredibly undersold.
Simply put, there is more to this fantasy than meets the memories, from Ray Liotta’s tremendously affecting work as Shoeless Joe Jackson to a young, awe-struck Gaby Hoffmann to, yes, Costner again, once again proving that for all his difficulties on-screen and off, the guy knows how to sell audiences on the power of a pitch.
5. Moneyball
Brad Pitt in Bennett Miller’s Moneyball.The Associated Press
Is Bennett Miller’s 2011 baseball-but-make-it-math drama the last truly great sports movie? You’d have a tricky time finding any challengers in the decade and a half since, so sharp and keen are the film’s instincts and observations.
From Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill’s tightly-wound performances to the precision that Miller brings to the behind-the-scenes machinations of the major leagues, Moneyball is the Swiss watch of baseball movies. Let’s keep it tickin’.
The Worst
1. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training
Die-hard baseball-movie addicts might scoff at this listing, but only because they were betting on 1978’s Bad News Bears Go to Japan on taking the top-worst spot. But no, it’s really that film’s predecessor, 1977’s The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, that deserves everyone’s loudest, most vicious boos, so loaded is it with inept storytelling, visual incoherence and more than a heaping dose of casual racism.
2. Major League: Back to the Minors
The 1989 Charlie Sheen comedy Major League has its defenders. And there are even some who are willing to speak out for its 1994 sequel, Major League II.
But I cannot think of anyone outside of Scott Bakula’s immediate family (and even then!) who will step up to the plate for this third instalment of the fratty baseball franchise. Although those who choose to suffer through the 1998 “comedy” today will find a small surprise: a young, many-decades-before-White Lotus Walton Goggins as home-run hotshot Billy “Downtown” Anderson.
3. Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls
Did you make it through the Adam Sandler-produced (but noticeably not Adam Sandler-starring) 2006 little-league comedy The Benchwarmers? Maybe, if only to see the once-upon-a-time in-demand talents of David Spade, Rob Schneider and erstwhile Napoleon Dynamite Jon Heder sharing top billing.
But I doubt anyone watched its direct-to-video, decade-and-a-half-too-late 2019 comedy Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls. A movie so disposable that it lacks a Wikipedia entry, the foul sequel at least provided friend-of-Sandler Jon Lovitz a quick payday, which I suppose is worth something, in the karmic sense of things.
4. Ed
Ed is a comedy featuring Matt LeBlanc as a minor-league pitcher and a chimpanzee named Ed as his team’s mascot.Universal Pictures/Supplied
The feature-film adventures of the Friends cast are worth a Netflix miniseries all their own, so wrongheaded and bizarre the choices often were. Take this 1996 comedy featuring Matt LeBlanc as a minor-league pitcher and a chimpanzee named Ed as his team’s mascot. They’re the original odd couple! But terrible!
5. The Scout
Brendan Fraser in a scene from the 1994 movie The Scout.20th Century Studios/Supplied
Albert Brooks deserves better. Brendan Fraser deserves better. Even Bob “I’ll cameo in anything” Costas deserves better. And that’s three strikes by my count.