A-List: Baseball Movies
By Josh Spiegel
June 11, 2009
It's almost that time of year, movie lovers. Yes, as the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup wind down, we're at the time of year that I, as a baseball fan, love: the two-month stretch when the only major sport going on in America is Major League Baseball. Sure, I like basketball (though I was specifically unaware of the whole brouhaha that erupted when LeBron James learned what it's like to lose for a few days), and I'll always have a soft spot for hockey, but the months of summer are best when baseball has the sport world all to itself.
Of course, for the other ten months of the year, when baseball is either vying for attention with other sports like basketball or football, or when it's simply not being played, I can always comfort myself with some of the great baseball movies. America's national pastime has managed to provide hours of entertainment on television - as with the famous 1990s PBS miniseries documentary Baseball - and the movies. Directors as varied as Barry Levinson, John Sayles, and even Sam Raimi have found inspiration with this centuries-old sport (though the film from the latter director, For Love Of The Game, won't be showing up on this list).
Even more, though the sport and the films surrounding it are usually dominated by men, one of the very best baseball movies is not only about a ragtag league full of women, but was also directed by a woman, a sadly rare feat indeed. Though the sport of baseball has been tarnished recently due to the shameful steroid scandal, new and old movies about baseball can live on despite the dark realities going on around us. As a few of the movies on this list prove, there's something truly nostalgic about baseball, something deeper than a childhood memory; baseball is so inherently American, moreso than football or basketball, because it harkens back to a time that's not so much forgotten as created. Baseball is a symbol of a time that may have only lived in fantasy, but the movies that can evoke that symbolism often succeed best. Not all of the movies on this list are so fond in their remembrances, but the majority do fall under that category. So, let's get to this week's A-List.
Field of Dreams
When talking about baseball movies, not mentioning 1989's Field of Dreams amounts to heresy. The film's star, Kevin Costner, has often been associated with baseball movies; though 1987's Bull Durham is another classic baseball movie, this one is by far the best Costner ever did. Of course, I'd be willing to go so far as saying that Field of Dreams is the best baseball movie ever. Okay, it may not be the wildest statement you've seen in one of these A-Lists, but it's important to give credit where it's due. Based on a novel by W.P. Kinsella, Field of Dreams is about a normal guy, Ray. One day, while on his farm, he hears a voice tell him "If you build it, he will come." Now, Ray is appropriately freaked out, but eventually assumes rightly that "it" is a baseball field.
Once Ray builds the old-style diamond, he finds out that "he" is the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta, as un-creepy as ever), the Chicago White Sox player who participated in a scandal to fix the 1919 World Series. Shoeless Joe gets another chance to play baseball thanks to Ray's field and some magical cornfields. Things snowball after this, as Ray ends up meeting one of his literary idols (James Earl Jones), other ghostly baseball legends and even his father, in the most memorable game of catch ever. By the way, some men may not admit it, but if you don't even consider letting a few tears fly in that last scene, fellas, you may have a heart of stone. For Costner's performance, the magic that writer-director Phil Alden Robinson so perfectly captures, and...well, everything about this movie, Field of Dreams is a classic. If you haven't seen this movie for any reason (such as not liking the sport of baseball), go to Netflix and add it to your queue.
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