SOX OFFENDERS

One of the things that's been helping me through the baseball-less winter, besides the NESN re-runs, Hot Stove reports and stacks of European porno, has been what I call "baseball cinema." Every couple of nights, I rent a few baseball-themed movies, and over steak and beers and the constant nagging voice inside my head that begs me to re-examine this life I'm leading, I watch. For hours.

I figger that in the short space of time between the Cardinals’ victory parade and this very moment, Denton and I have watched a couple dozen baseball films. Some have been very, very good. Others, not so much. But while they’re fresh in our minds, we thought it a good time to share some of our observations.

Most Convincing Performance as a Baseball Player: Kevin Costner. Crash Davis is simply the best baseball character ever conjured [at least in my head, and that's no place you want to be], and Costner embodies him with just the right mix of moxie and damaged pride. Hell, the dude was even a convincing baseball player in Waterworld, a film in which he didn't actually portray a baseball player. He's that good.

Possibly the Best Baseball Film Ever Made: The Natural. From the moment Roy Hobbs (played by Robert Redford) strikes out “The Whammer” (Joe Don Baker looking eerily like The Babe), you just know this is gonna be good. The story is not new – over-the-hill player trying to make in the majors – but the acting is brilliant. It is the fairy-tale ending that really makes this one memorable, especially if you’re a Red Sox fan. Couldn’t you just see one of Damon’s 2004 post-season homeruns shattering the lights and making fireworks? Won’t you always think of the Schilling bloody sock when you see the red spot seeping through Hobbs’ jersey? Yeah, me too.

Possibly the Funniest Baseball Film Ever Made: Major League. End of story. If you haven’t seen it, what’s wrong with you? If you have, see it again; you’ll still laugh.

Least Convincing Performance as a Baseball Player: John Candy in Brewster's Millions. Candy as a catcher? At 280 pounds, I gotta figure squatting for nine minutes is tough enough on this guy’s knees, let alone nine innings. Unless the pitcher was throwing fresh-baked hams. Then, y’know, I could see it.

Actually, This is Probably the Best Baseball Movie Ever Made: Field of Dreams. Simply put, this is fucking brilliant. Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones are amazing and supported by the likes of Ray Liotta as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Burt Lancaster as “Moonlight” Graham. The movie transcends baseball: it is life. Baseball is the fabric between people and their dads. It starts with the first trip to the ballpark and grows into having beers watching a game on the tube. This movie captures beautifully the desire of everybody who has lost their dad to have one final game of catch in the backyard. I’ll say it again: brilliant.

My Coach, The Drunkard: I forgot how funny the first Bad News Bears film is. Screw all that happy sunshine and dads in the park bullshit; this is the seedy underbelly of little league baseball, with Walter Matthau as ex-minor leaguer Morris Buttermaker who attempts to whip a team of gawdawful kids into shape. Tell me Morris Buttermaker isn't the best baseball name ever, fictitious or otherwise. Say it with me. Buttermaker. Buttermaker. Yes.

Best Baseball Film Starring a Bunch of Kids That Isn’t Bad News Bears:The Sandlot. If you’re looking for a movie where a kids fakes drowning to have the hot female lifeguard give him mouth to mouth, or where a bunch of kids go on too many rides and have a pukefest, this is your movie. A good baseball story is told between the teenage hijinks that makes this movie worthwhile. Not to mention, The Voice (James Earl Jones) plays a great part.

Most Disturbing Fact: John Goodman had to lose 50 pounds to play Babe Ruth in The Babe. That's like almost shedding a whole Craig Grebeck.

Best Baseball Movie Featuring Richard Pryor:Bingo Long and The Travelling All-Stars.

Worst Baseball Movie Featuring Richard Pryor:Brewster's Millions.

Worst Richard Pryor Movie, Period: Another You.

Best Portrayal of an Announcer: David "Squiggy" Lander in A League of Their Own and Bob Uecker in Major League. Yeah, "The Uke" does this for a living, adding color to Brewers games [somebody has to], but his Harry Doyle was one of the funniest things in the movie.

Cry-Your-Ass-Off Triple Feature: I'd never seen any of the "classics" of baseball cinema, so I rented Pride of The Yankees, which documents the rise and untimely death of Lou Gehrig; Bang the Drum Slowly, concerning a terminally ill catcher bonding with his teammates [and featuring a superb performance by Robert DeNiro]; and Fear Strikes Out, the biography of former Red Sox great Jimmy Piersall, whose desire to impress his demanding father led him to a break down. Cheeful stuff, to be sure. A nobler man might readily admit that he didn't so much watch these films as he rolled around the floor blubbering like a six year old girl. I'm not that man.

Laugh-Your-Balls-Off Triple Feature: This ain't no revelation, but, as stated earlier, Major League is the funniest baseball film ever made. I'd also make a case for BASEketball, in which Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame invent a backyard baseball/basketball hybrid, which The Man, as he's known to do, tries to exploit for his own intentions. Also, the climactic scene in The Naked Gun, in which Leslie Nielsen, posing as an umpire, chases a gun-toting Reggie Jackson, is just brilliant. All this and O.J., too!

Best Baseball Movie Featuring Anthony Michael Hall: 61* depicts the summer in which Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle drank mucho brewskis, shared an apartment, chased skirt [at least The Mick did, with great aplomb in fact] and, oh yeah, pursued Babe Ruth's single season home run record. Great performances here, but the question I was left with was how the Gollum-like Billy Crystal, who directed, ever spawned the incredibly hot Jennifer Crystal, who plays Maris' wife.

Could Have Used More Brittany Murphy: Summer Catch could have been a great flick. Yet despite its rich subject matter -- young hopefuls chasing pro baseball careers in the Cape Cod Summer League -- it quickly devolves into American Pie. And not in a good way. Great scene, though, where Brittany sticks a beer bottle between her legs and then pours the contents into her boyfriend's mouth. If only they could have stretched that scene to 90 minutes...

Best Quote: After watching all of these films, the one quote that kept clanging around in my head was Tom Hanks' immortal "There's no crying in baseball" from A League of Their Own. And there isn't.

Red and Denton continue to jabber on through the off-season at survivinggrady.com