Baseball, the oldest of the four major sports was invented in 1869, and since then it has delighted fans year after year. Sports are the original drama and as many movies, baseball is slow-paced, but in an instant can jolt you with excitement. Unfortunately, the season which was to start last month has been postponed, and it is uncertain when the season will get underway.
Fortunately, Hollywood loves to make movies about baseball, so there are plenty of films you can check out to quench your thirst for the sport. Check out the best ones you can choose from!
42
This is the story of Jackie Robinson (he wore #42), the player that broke the color barrier in 1946. Before that, no ballclub had ever signed an African American player. Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who made the move to sign Robinson. What made Robinson so great was that he let his play do the talking.
From the moment Rickey signed him, Robinson faced open racism from every direction, but instead of firing back which would have been the easy thing to do, he stayed courageous and calm and silenced his critics with his tremendous play. Robinson is played by a young Chadwick Boseman, pre-Black Panther.
The Scout
This is a lesser-known baseball movie, but enjoyable all the same. Albert Brooks plays Al Percolo, a scout for the New York Yankees who needs to land a prospect to save his job. His pursuit takes him to Mexico, where he discovers Steve Nebraska (Brendan Fraser), a player that has the potential to be an ace on the mound and a slugger at the plate.
Percolo takes Nebraska from the small-time league and signs him to play for the Yankees, giving Nebraska his dream seemingly solving Percolo's problems. But when the move to the big city is a difficult adjustment for Nebraska. Percolo enlists the help of a psychiatrist (Dianne West). This 1994 movie, is light-hearted, funny and an easy watch.
The Natural
Baseball is a slow sport, the game itself has no shot clock or time restriction, so theoretically, a game could last forever. This 1984 film from Barry Levinson, really captures that aspect of baseball. It stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, who is in a word a natural when it comes to baseball. Before his career can begin, he is shot leaving him unable to play.
Sixteen years later, Hobbs makes his pro baseball debut and gives new life to a last-place ball club. Although it drags at times, it is a good depiction of baseball pre World War II. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Cinematography.
Million Dollar Arm
This biographical baseball is quite different from your prototypical baseball movie. It is about a sports agent, J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm), who cannot seem to sign or keep a client. He swings for the fences when he heads to India to try to find a cricket player who he can turn into an MLB player.
With the help of Ray (Alan Arkin), an aging scout, he returns to the United States with two promising prospects. J.B. soon realizes that finding the two young men was the easy part, turning them into real baseball players proves far more challenging than he ever realized. This one is perfect for the whole family as it won the Truly Moving Picture Award.
Major League
Major League is certainly one of the most famous, not only baseball movies but sports movies. It's about the owner of the Cleveland Indians, Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton), who has her heart set on moving the team to Miami. In order to be able to move to the team to Miami, game attendance has to take a dive.
To ensure this, Phelps puts together a ragtag team filled with erratic and injury-prone players. Two that stand out are Rick Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), who can't see a thing and thus has no control of his pitches, and Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), a catcher who can't stay healthy. Phelps' plan backfires when to everyone's surprise, the team starts winning and is a World Series contender.
The Bad News Bears
This was the original movie about youths playing baseball. When his son can't get into a highly competitive Little League roster, a lawyer hires a man to coach a team comprised of all the sub-par players and it will be added to the league. The man is a washed-up ex-minor leaguer with a drinking problem.
Although he does it begrudgingly, Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matheau) soon finds a soft spot for the kids and dedicates himself to turning their season around. This movie didn't age particularly well, but the scenes that are heartwarming still hold up. For all its faults, it is still highly comedic and isn't cheesy in a way that many movies about youth sports can be.
The Sandlot
"You're killing me, Smalls."Quite possibly one of the most famous movie lines, from one of the most famous movies. You'll be hard-pressed to find somebody The Sandlot. It recounts a summer in the 1960s when Scottie Smalls moves and has no friends. He is soon taken under the wing of Benny Rodriguez, who introduces Smalls to his gang of friends who spend their days playing baseball.
Throughout the summer, the boys get into mischief, but they run into a major problem when Smalls hits his stepdad's signed Babe Ruth ball into somebody's yard. Things get worse when Smalls realizes the yard belongs to a man who owns a dog that is rumored to eat people. Regardless of how many times you watch this movie, it never gets old.
A League of Their Own
With all able-bodied men fighting in World War II, an all-female baseball league is started. Two sisters, Dottie (Geena Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty) quickly become two of the league's best players. Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna round out the rest of the Rockford Peaches roster, that is headed for greatness.
They are all held in check by their washed up, unenthusiastic manager, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks). As the season wains on, Dotti and Kit are at each other's throats more and more. Can they hold it together and put the team ahead of their own interests? This film was directed by Penny Marshal and nominated for two Golden Globes.
The Pride of the Yankees
Every baseball fan knows who the pride of the Yankees is. It's not Derek Jeter, it's not Babe Ruth, it's Lou Gehrig. This 1942 classic is a biography about the famed ironman (Gary Cooper) who became one of the most revered players in baseball history.
From the day he took over for Wally Pipp to his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech, this movie recounts his career through the eyes of sportswriter Sam Blake (Walter Brennan). This one is in the running for the most touching movie on the list and it was critically acclaimed as well. The Pride of the Yankees was nominated for eleven Oscars and won for Best Film Editing.
Moneyball
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, who changed baseball strategy forever. With the help of his assistant, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane realizes if he tries to conduct business like the rich teams in the office, they will lose to the rich teams on the field.
Based on the book by Michael Lewis, Beane puts together a roster filled with players others have deemed flawed, but advanced data and metrics champion. Perhaps the best-made movie on this list (nominated for 6 Oscars), it begs the question, "how can you not be romantic about baseball?"
