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4) The Fake Wild Throw

From: Little Big League

Awesome Factor: 8

This trick play is even more incredible than the others on the list in one specific way: while the other plays are used to dupe untrained eight year-olds and people from Iceland (admittedly unimpressive achievements), young baseball genius and Twins Owner/Manager Billy Heywood uses his strategic prowess to trick actual professional athletes into looking like eight-year-olds from Iceland. That's right, Billy Heywood inherits the Minnesota Twins from his grandfather, names himself manager, and then pulls off one of the most ridiculous trick plays in baseball: the fake wild throw. Pitcher Jim Bowers stands on the mound, preparing to pitch, but instead tries to pick off the runner at first — Ken Griffey Jr., playing himself and making all of us wonder how much money this guy really needed — but the ball goes flying past first basemen Lou Collins and into right field. As the players scramble to find the past ball, Griffey smugly trots to second base, only to realize that Powers had the ball the whole time! He never threw it to first, and tosses it to the second baseman, who tags out Griffey, now even more humiliated than he was when he first signed up to do this movie in the first place.

Realism Factor: 3

As brilliant as this play is, there's only one small problem with it: it's completely illegal. According to MLB rules, if a pitcher is standing on the mound and does a pickoff move to first, he must actually throw the ball. Otherwise, it's a balk and Griffey would get to go to second base anyway. This is not even the worst offense of this film, which completely ignores the fact that 1) The owner of the Twins does not own the Metrodome 2) Owners are not allowed to manage their own teams, as this represents a conflict of interest and 3) Tripping on a ball and breaking your arm will not give you super-human baseball playing powers. Okay, so that's actually a reference to the movie Rookie of the Year, but I don't have any trick plays to mention about that movie, and I needed to get that in. Seriously, he breaks his arm and becomes a superstar pitcher? What kind of lesson is that to teach kids?

5) Any Play Involving a Dog Scoring a Basket

From: Air Bud

Awesome Factor: 5

Even when I was a kid, and believed some pretty ridiculous things, this film always struck me as just too much to handle. Young insecure Josh Framm finds Buddy, a dog who uses his nose to score baskets and, after Josh learns valuable lessons about bravery and loyalty and other crap that kids learn in these movies, he convinces his team's coach to put Buddy into the championship team, because they discover that there is no rule that says that dogs aren't allowed to play basketball. Thanks to Josh's newfound confidence and Buddy's Lebron James-like abilities, they win the game and everyone is happy.

Realistic Factor: -3

No! No freaking way! Not even a little bit! First, of course there's no rule that says that dogs can't play basketball. There's also nothing in the constitution that says that the president can't force every member of congress to moon the vice-president. Why? Because it's so ridiculous it's assumed nobody would ever try it (although I bet Barack Obama is tempted every day, just to see the look on Joe Biden's face). In addition, dogs are about two feet tall, which, the last time I checked, is significantly shorter than twelve-year-olds. Wouldn't the other team be able to block every shot that Buddy took? Plus, assuming that Buddy can score baskets (which is a Grand Canyon hurdling leap of faith on my part), he still can't catch, pass or dribble, and he has no concept of any of the rules of basketball. If the other team had had a dog whistle or even a piece of chicken, Buddy would have been rendered less effective than, well, I can't really think of a more apt analogy than a dog playing basketball. The only way this movie would have been more ridiculous is if Josh had given Buddy a hockey stick and Buddy had scored a basket Knuckle Puck style.

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