Magic article. Dodgers fan here from the UK and a baseball fan since the first broadcasts live in the early(ish) 1990's. Major League 1/2, Eight Men Out (a particular favourite) and Moneyball for me, but then we have to discuss Field of Dreams, a father and son tale that isn't really about baseball and a movie I LOVE but can't watch anymore as I'm in pieces at the first mention or even hint at a much missed Dad. I've written at length on this within an article here (My Dad in a Field of Dreams) and so I'll only add the obvious: "Hey Dad, you wanna have a catch?" just destroys me. A limey with no connection to baseball. Just a familial connection to my dear old Dad. Love the MLB Field of Dreams games. Even I can turn off my cynicism to enjoy the schmaltz! Great article I'll re-read during the innings breaks in the upcoming Dodgers game! Good luck to you.
Hi Stephen, two dead parents here, so I get it, trust me, I do. Do feel free to include a link to your article here, if you'd like to. Thanks for reading, my friend; I'm glad to hear it resonated with you.
Two dead parents here too! My dear old Mum was more of a cricket fan, hence my obsession for this quintessential English game. Here's my article and if time permits sometime, I hope you enjoy it
Field of Dreams has been one of my very favourite films ever since I first saw it at 15. I know nothing about baseball but I think this film taps into an almost universal nostalgia for a simpler time. It never fails to make me cry but also functions as a comfort blanket.
I haven’t seen many of the later films on this list but I remember feeling in 88/ 89 that baseball films were everywhere. I enjoyed 8 Men Out too, particularly because of its obvious links to Field Of Dreams.
MONEYBALL is one of the greatest baseball films ever made, in my book. But it's also just a great film. I really don't understand how someone couldn't love it.
I haven't seen many of the movies on that list, bit the ones I have, I remember fondly. I remember feeling that sense of comminuted you mention at the end. There's an X-Files episode called The Unnatural (Season 6, Episode 19) that is one of my favourites, and I think captures this same feeling, in a supernatural sorta way.
Anyone who doesn't shed tears at the climax of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs (Redford) hits the ball and it smashes into the scoreboard, causing fireworks to rain down on him as he makes his home run, has no soul.
Great stuff. I grew up loving baseball, skipped out for a decade or so, and now I'm back. THE NATURAL gets a viewing nearly once a year as my fantasy baseball season kicks off. Both my fantasy team and my playstation team are named THE SAVOY SPECIALS after Bobby the bat boy's bat. It is a magical game. Being a lifetime Mets fan, Game 6 of the '86 World Series is the zenith of what insanity happens to make baseball the great leveler in team sports.
As an adult I have sadly become a Mariners' fan (feel our sorrow), and as another abysmal season came to an end this year the local sports show had a sound bite (and I paraphrase) that I loved (and sorry I'm not sure whom to attribute this quote), "All team sports, basketball, hockey, football, are based on adrenaline, but baseball is all about tension. It's the one sport that allows you to cut the faces in the crowd and see the joy and dread on their faces as they anticipate what is going to happen next from pitch to pitch."
I think this observation is true. It has space for stories, to slow down and pay attention to moments. Every other sport is moving so rapidly, the ball or puck becomes the subject. In baseball, the people almost always are.
If ED didn't outright kill off the commercial prospects of the baseball movie in Hollywood then FOR LOVE OF THE GAME put the final nail in the coffin closing out the decade with mixed reviews and failing to make back its budget. Oh the irony that it would be Kevin Costner that would be its star when it was he who helped the baseball movie become popular with BULL DURHAM, which is not just the CITIZEN KANE of baseball movies but arguably of sports movies in general.
I'm not a huge baseball fan, I enjoyed it more when I was younger, even going to Toronto Blue Jay games with my dad as a kid, but there was something about that span of baseball movies that really captured something special about the sport and our relationship to it.
In a previous post, you asked us about movies that were quintessentially American. I absolutely cannot believe I didn't think of any of these great baseball movies!! Perhaps because none of them is considered to be "great art". The Natural is the closest to an art film. They are all very entertaining, and as American as it gets. My favorites are The Natural, Field of Dreams (gorgeous nostalgia), Eight Men Out (an unsentimental, anti-nostalgic look at a famous cheating scandal), Bull Durham (hilarious and sexy), and the feel-good A League of Their Own (just a great popcorn movie). Baseball movies are ready for a comeback!
I tend to to think of THE NATURAL, FIELD OF DREAMS, and BULL DURHAM as all quintessentially American, but I'd suggest BULL DURHAM is high art myself. 99% of scripts ever written don't approach its narrative grace or character work. It's a perfect film.
The screenplay to movie coffee grinder is always fascinating. The movie version of that scene is so much better than the screenplay version. The dialogue as written is so indicating. The movie scene has more silence.
I think this is Bennett Miller's super-power as a director - those silences. Aaron Sorkin's scripts are often about people ejecting perfect dialogue at high speeds. I enjoy it, but is it real? It is not. Miller takes that dialogue and somehow does what very few directors have ever done with it...asks his actors to perform it as if they're reluctant to say one word of it. Hence, those silences you're talking about, I think. In MONEYBALL, you actually see characters thinking before they speak, which is extraordinary, in the context of what we're discussing here. I'm thinking of the conversation between Pitt's Billy Beane and Hoffman's manager in the hallway, about who's in charge. They're both making calculated responses to one another, even in their bluster. Everyone constantly seems surprised by what's happening to them, or being said to them, and it really affects the dialogue rhythm. It's amazing to watch.
Well, the biggest change in eras in regards to something like Moneyball is that it's not remotely about the players, it's about the rich execs. What is Moneyball if not an ingenious way to maximize player production, and therefore not pay them? Beyond the feel good story of Scott Hatteberg, the most we hear from any player in this movie is David Justice essentially being told to shut up and play. Nothing about the league MVP that year, Miguel Tejada, who played shortstop for those A's and isn't even referenced!
My favorite part of that film is probably the Ricardo Rincon trade conversation - I actually really love baseball, and I really love Moneyball (book and movie). But underneath the comic gamesmanship of that sequence is the idea that players and salaries are interchangeable game pieces on a board. Compare that to the delightful chit chat between the kids in Little Big League when they're talking about trading for Rickey Henderson (to say nothing of YOU SHOULDA STARTED WEDDMAN!)
I’ve only seen 6 on that list (plus Moneyball). Grew up a Phillies fan. I’ve seen the Red Sox at Fenway, Cal Ripken, Jr during his streak in Baltimore, and took the kids to the Rockies game in Denver, but that’s about it. I think the players’ strike did sour me, but until you mentioned it, I wouldn’t have even remembered! Great article. Thanks!
I've seen games in only five stadiums at this point, which is frustrating. Every summer, I come back to the States to see family in KY. Every time, I try to make the short drive to Cincinnati for a game. Every time, dates don't line up. But I have seen a World Series game and been to an All-Star game, which were both fun.
Misplaced Tigers fan here. Not the point of your article and I hate to be a well actually guy, but there was no game 6 of the 2012 World Series. I was at game 3 in Detroit.
Yeah, that's the world's sloppiest typo (corrected, thanks!). I was there for Game 1, when SF utterly embarrassed the Tigers. I also could only score nosebleed seats, as it was all that was left of the travel budget after last-minute flight, hotel, and other travel costs to tick this one off my bucket list. But I was living in LA, and it didn't make sense to pass up the opportunity.
I did Game 3 on the cheap as well. Feels like that was back when Southwest was still a low-cost airline. Scored a cheap flight from Dallas to Detroit, bought nosebleed seats, and thankfully I had a buddy to stay with so I didn't have to worry about a hotel. The game sucked, I went back and checked the box score to confirm my memory. No runs on 5 hits, 9 men left on base, and 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position. Still, it was seeing the Tigers in the World Series so it was an absolute bucket list item for me too.
Magic article. Dodgers fan here from the UK and a baseball fan since the first broadcasts live in the early(ish) 1990's. Major League 1/2, Eight Men Out (a particular favourite) and Moneyball for me, but then we have to discuss Field of Dreams, a father and son tale that isn't really about baseball and a movie I LOVE but can't watch anymore as I'm in pieces at the first mention or even hint at a much missed Dad. I've written at length on this within an article here (My Dad in a Field of Dreams) and so I'll only add the obvious: "Hey Dad, you wanna have a catch?" just destroys me. A limey with no connection to baseball. Just a familial connection to my dear old Dad. Love the MLB Field of Dreams games. Even I can turn off my cynicism to enjoy the schmaltz! Great article I'll re-read during the innings breaks in the upcoming Dodgers game! Good luck to you.
Hi Stephen, two dead parents here, so I get it, trust me, I do. Do feel free to include a link to your article here, if you'd like to. Thanks for reading, my friend; I'm glad to hear it resonated with you.
Two dead parents here too! My dear old Mum was more of a cricket fan, hence my obsession for this quintessential English game. Here's my article and if time permits sometime, I hope you enjoy it
https://open.substack.com/pub/ramblingmusings666/p/my-dad-in-a-field-of-dreams-e0fbe975689a?r=2u7w8q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Field of Dreams has been one of my very favourite films ever since I first saw it at 15. I know nothing about baseball but I think this film taps into an almost universal nostalgia for a simpler time. It never fails to make me cry but also functions as a comfort blanket.
I haven’t seen many of the later films on this list but I remember feeling in 88/ 89 that baseball films were everywhere. I enjoyed 8 Men Out too, particularly because of its obvious links to Field Of Dreams.
I’ve never seen Moneyball. Going to change that.
MONEYBALL is one of the greatest baseball films ever made, in my book. But it's also just a great film. I really don't understand how someone couldn't love it.
I haven't seen many of the movies on that list, bit the ones I have, I remember fondly. I remember feeling that sense of comminuted you mention at the end. There's an X-Files episode called The Unnatural (Season 6, Episode 19) that is one of my favourites, and I think captures this same feeling, in a supernatural sorta way.
I'd completely forgotten about that "X-Files" episode. Thanks for reminding me.
Very welcome. The final scene with Mulder and Scully in that episode lives in my head rent free.
Anyone who doesn't shed tears at the climax of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs (Redford) hits the ball and it smashes into the scoreboard, causing fireworks to rain down on him as he makes his home run, has no soul.
None.
Great stuff. I grew up loving baseball, skipped out for a decade or so, and now I'm back. THE NATURAL gets a viewing nearly once a year as my fantasy baseball season kicks off. Both my fantasy team and my playstation team are named THE SAVOY SPECIALS after Bobby the bat boy's bat. It is a magical game. Being a lifetime Mets fan, Game 6 of the '86 World Series is the zenith of what insanity happens to make baseball the great leveler in team sports.
As an adult I have sadly become a Mariners' fan (feel our sorrow), and as another abysmal season came to an end this year the local sports show had a sound bite (and I paraphrase) that I loved (and sorry I'm not sure whom to attribute this quote), "All team sports, basketball, hockey, football, are based on adrenaline, but baseball is all about tension. It's the one sport that allows you to cut the faces in the crowd and see the joy and dread on their faces as they anticipate what is going to happen next from pitch to pitch."
Let's go Mets!!
I think this observation is true. It has space for stories, to slow down and pay attention to moments. Every other sport is moving so rapidly, the ball or puck becomes the subject. In baseball, the people almost always are.
Right? Totally makes sense that this is the sport that storytellers tend to gravitate toward (in general), the pacing, with room to breathe.
I loved that movie. Even better because it gave one of our daughters the courage to play her heart out.
Enjoyed this post. Well worth checking out: Noah Gittell's new book BASEBALL: THE MOVIE, about these very themes. He has a terrific Substack, too.
Thanks for the pointer, Vince. Sounds right up my alley!
If ED didn't outright kill off the commercial prospects of the baseball movie in Hollywood then FOR LOVE OF THE GAME put the final nail in the coffin closing out the decade with mixed reviews and failing to make back its budget. Oh the irony that it would be Kevin Costner that would be its star when it was he who helped the baseball movie become popular with BULL DURHAM, which is not just the CITIZEN KANE of baseball movies but arguably of sports movies in general.
I'm not a huge baseball fan, I enjoyed it more when I was younger, even going to Toronto Blue Jay games with my dad as a kid, but there was something about that span of baseball movies that really captured something special about the sport and our relationship to it.
I haven't seen FOR LOVE OF THE GAME in 25 years...but I don't remember it as especially egregious. Have you seen it more recently?
Admittedly, it’s been awhile. I don’t remember hating it but I also don’t remember being wowed by it or having any desire to watch it again.
Could use one now.
In a previous post, you asked us about movies that were quintessentially American. I absolutely cannot believe I didn't think of any of these great baseball movies!! Perhaps because none of them is considered to be "great art". The Natural is the closest to an art film. They are all very entertaining, and as American as it gets. My favorites are The Natural, Field of Dreams (gorgeous nostalgia), Eight Men Out (an unsentimental, anti-nostalgic look at a famous cheating scandal), Bull Durham (hilarious and sexy), and the feel-good A League of Their Own (just a great popcorn movie). Baseball movies are ready for a comeback!
I tend to to think of THE NATURAL, FIELD OF DREAMS, and BULL DURHAM as all quintessentially American, but I'd suggest BULL DURHAM is high art myself. 99% of scripts ever written don't approach its narrative grace or character work. It's a perfect film.
Field of dreams made me cry. And I don't give a fuck about my dad.
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/the-day-the-pig-fell-into-the-well
Yeah minor league games are where it's at. When I lived in NYC I adored going to Coney Island for a Cyclones game. The big leagues are reality TV.
Watching the Louisville Bats play in KY every summer reminds me of what it was like to go to a ballgame as a kid.
The screenplay to movie coffee grinder is always fascinating. The movie version of that scene is so much better than the screenplay version. The dialogue as written is so indicating. The movie scene has more silence.
I think this is Bennett Miller's super-power as a director - those silences. Aaron Sorkin's scripts are often about people ejecting perfect dialogue at high speeds. I enjoy it, but is it real? It is not. Miller takes that dialogue and somehow does what very few directors have ever done with it...asks his actors to perform it as if they're reluctant to say one word of it. Hence, those silences you're talking about, I think. In MONEYBALL, you actually see characters thinking before they speak, which is extraordinary, in the context of what we're discussing here. I'm thinking of the conversation between Pitt's Billy Beane and Hoffman's manager in the hallway, about who's in charge. They're both making calculated responses to one another, even in their bluster. Everyone constantly seems surprised by what's happening to them, or being said to them, and it really affects the dialogue rhythm. It's amazing to watch.
Well, the biggest change in eras in regards to something like Moneyball is that it's not remotely about the players, it's about the rich execs. What is Moneyball if not an ingenious way to maximize player production, and therefore not pay them? Beyond the feel good story of Scott Hatteberg, the most we hear from any player in this movie is David Justice essentially being told to shut up and play. Nothing about the league MVP that year, Miguel Tejada, who played shortstop for those A's and isn't even referenced!
My favorite part of that film is probably the Ricardo Rincon trade conversation - I actually really love baseball, and I really love Moneyball (book and movie). But underneath the comic gamesmanship of that sequence is the idea that players and salaries are interchangeable game pieces on a board. Compare that to the delightful chit chat between the kids in Little Big League when they're talking about trading for Rickey Henderson (to say nothing of YOU SHOULDA STARTED WEDDMAN!)
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
I’ve only seen 6 on that list (plus Moneyball). Grew up a Phillies fan. I’ve seen the Red Sox at Fenway, Cal Ripken, Jr during his streak in Baltimore, and took the kids to the Rockies game in Denver, but that’s about it. I think the players’ strike did sour me, but until you mentioned it, I wouldn’t have even remembered! Great article. Thanks!
I've seen games in only five stadiums at this point, which is frustrating. Every summer, I come back to the States to see family in KY. Every time, I try to make the short drive to Cincinnati for a game. Every time, dates don't line up. But I have seen a World Series game and been to an All-Star game, which were both fun.
Misplaced Tigers fan here. Not the point of your article and I hate to be a well actually guy, but there was no game 6 of the 2012 World Series. I was at game 3 in Detroit.
Yeah, that's the world's sloppiest typo (corrected, thanks!). I was there for Game 1, when SF utterly embarrassed the Tigers. I also could only score nosebleed seats, as it was all that was left of the travel budget after last-minute flight, hotel, and other travel costs to tick this one off my bucket list. But I was living in LA, and it didn't make sense to pass up the opportunity.
I did Game 3 on the cheap as well. Feels like that was back when Southwest was still a low-cost airline. Scored a cheap flight from Dallas to Detroit, bought nosebleed seats, and thankfully I had a buddy to stay with so I didn't have to worry about a hotel. The game sucked, I went back and checked the box score to confirm my memory. No runs on 5 hits, 9 men left on base, and 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position. Still, it was seeing the Tigers in the World Series so it was an absolute bucket list item for me too.