Baseball - America’s pastime in movies

There are far too many baseball movies to discuss in one column.
In 1898, Thomas Edison produced the first baseball movie: The Ball Game, which featured two amateur teams from Newark, N. J. playing their hearts out. Over a century has passed since that first baseball movie and more than 250 baseball movies, series, and documentaries have been produced.
And while my list will be different than yours, here goes with my top five baseball movies:
5. Major League (1989)
The new owner of the Cleveland Indians puts together a purposely horrible team so they’ll lose and she can move the team. But when the plot is uncovered, they start winning just to spite her.
Charlie Sheen played the pitcher “Wild Thing” Ricky Vaughn.
Wesley Snipes was the speedy outfielder Willie Mays Hayes.

4 A League of Their Own (1992)
“There’s no crying in baseball” is the most quoted line from the movie.
It was a comedy-drama that tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League The film stars catcher “Dottie” Geena Davis, manager “Jimmy” Tom Hanks, pitcher “Kit” Lori Petty, third baseman “Doris” Rosie O’Donnell, and centerfielder “Mae” Madonna.
LSU Eunice head softbll coach Andy Lee’s great aunt was Annabelle Lee Harmon, a pitcher with four different teams of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Her uniform is part of a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Cooperstown, New York and she was a consultant for the movie.

3 Bull Durham (1988)
In Bull Durham Kevin Costner is at his best, and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are perfect complements.
Some people would rank this as one of the best sports movies - not just baseball movies - but I still have two movies that I liked better.
Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) is a perennial Minor Leaguer assigned to the Durham Bulls
There he tutors a young, dim-witted pitching prodigy, Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) but each strikes up a romance with Annie (Susan Sarandon).

2 Field of Dreams (1989)
“If you build it, they will come.”
Kevin Costner plays an Iowa corn farmer, who hears voices and interprets them as a command to build a baseball diamond in his fields.
He does, and the Chicago Black Sox come.
The movie is based on the book “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella.
You could also put For Love of the Game in this slot - another Costner movie from 1999.

1 The Natural (1984)
While it may not be the best baseball movie of all time - it is one of my favorites.
It's based on a novel by Bernard Malamud and features a strong cast including Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger and Robert Duval.
I don’t have room to discuss the whole plot but who can forget the scene where Roy Hobbs (Redford) hits a towering home run off the lights to win the pennant?

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