Damn you Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Today, would have been the 152nd season opener for Major League Baseball, and more importantly for my Philadelphia Phillies, had the season not been on hold due to the global health crisis at hand.
So, what is a baseball fan to do when there is no Opening Day? Well, you could rewatch recent games on MLB.TV. According to Cnet, the streaming service has opened its vaults. Maybe I will have to dig around in there for the final game of the 2008 World Series. Ken Burns infamous documentary is also available online at PBS. For free.
Or if you have an XBox or Playstation you could always pretend and play The Show 20.
A fourth option is to get handful of peanuts, grill a hot dog or brat, crack a beer and settle in for one of the baseball movies below:
Bad New Bears
(!976) One of my favorite baseball movies ever. Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) is a burned-out minor league baseball player who is a drunk and cleans swimming pools. The grumpy middle-aged man (see what I did there?) agrees to coach a Little League team at the behest of lawyer-councilman Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza), who has a vendetta against the league for excluding his marginally talented son from play.
After failing with his new team of misfits, Buttermaker recruits gifted pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) to lead the charge. The movie has heart, charm, lots of baseball and even more cursing. Who can forget Tanner the shortstop yelling at the Yankees, “Hey Yankees, you can take that trophy and shove it up your asses?”
Stream on Hulu or Amazon Prime
Field of Dreams
(1989) “Is this Heaven?” Ray Liotta asks. Kevin Costner replies, This is Iowa.” When Iowa farmer Ray (Kevin Costner) hears a mysterious voice one night in his cornfield saying “If you build it, he will come,” he feels the need to act. Despite taunts of lunacy, Ray builds a baseball diamond on his land, supported by his wife, Annie (Amy Madigan).
Afterward, the ghosts of great players start emerging from the crops to play ball, led by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. But, as Ray learns, this field of dreams is about much more than bringing former baseball greats out to play. It’s film that has a ton of baseball heart and tears. Mostly mine. James Earl Jones is unforgettable as this feel-good baseball film.
Rent or buy: Amazon, Apple, FandangoNow, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube. It’s also available on Hulu.
The Natural
(1984) On the way to a tryout with the Chicago Cubs, young baseball phenom Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) is shot by the unstable Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey).
After 16 years, Hobbs returns to pro baseball as a rookie for the last-place New York Knights. Despite early arguments with his manager, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), Hobbs becomes one of the best players in the league, and the Knights start winning. But this upsets the Judge (Robert Prosky), their owner, who wants Hobbs to lose games, not win. Robert Redford is at his very best here.
Watch Redford pitch on Netflix.
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
(1976) Here’s a film that NEEDS a remake. Featuring an all-star cast of Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor, a charismatic pitcher steals a bunch of Negro League players from their teams to form their own team.
They take to the road, barnstorming through small Midwestern towns, playing the local teams to make ends meet. One of the opposing players, ‘Esquire’ Joe Calloway (Stan Shaw), is so good that they recruit him.
Bingo’s team becomes so outlandishly entertaining and successful, it begins to cut into the attendance of the established Negro League teams. It’s a great commentary on slavery and still relevant today the way owners treat black players on professional sports teams.
Rent Bingo Long on Amazon Prime, YouTube and Vudu.
Major League
(1989) The new owner of the Cleveland Indians, former showgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton), has a sweetheart deal to move the team to Miami. But to break the lease with the city of Cleveland, ticket sales have to plummet.
So, Phelps hires the most incompetent players available, including near-blind pitcher Rick Vaughn (Charlie Sheen when he was still likable) and injury-prone catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger). But her villainous tactics accidentally foster a can-do team spirit, turning the Indians into potential winners. Quite possibly the funniest baseball movie ever made.
Rent or buy: Amazon, Apple, FandangoNow, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
ALSO READ: A solve for the film crisis – bring back the double feature
Moneyball
(2011) Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), general manager of the Oakland A’s, one day has an epiphany: baseball’s conventional wisdom is all wrong. Faced with a tight budget, Beane must reinvent his team by outsmarting the richer ball clubs. Joining forces with Ivy League graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane prepares to challenge old-school traditions.
He recruits bargain-bin players whom the scouts have labeled as flawed, but have game-winning potential. Based on the book by Michael Lewis.
Rent or buy: Amazon, Apple, FandangoNow, Vudu, YouTube
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(2013) In 1946, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), legendary manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, defies major league baseball’s notorious color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) to the team. The heroic act puts both Rickey and Robinson in the firing line of the public, the press and other players. Facing open racism from all sides, Robinson demonstrates true courage and admirable restraint by not reacting in kind and lets his undeniable talent silence the critics for him.
Rent or buy: Amazon, Apple, FandangoNow, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
A League of Their Own
(1992) Penny Marshall’s classic. As America’s young men went off to war against Germany during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall).
Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and Kit Keller (Lori Petty) spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) on their way to fame. Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell co-star as two of the sisters’ teammates.
Rent or buy: Amazon, Apple, FandangoNow, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
Bull Durham
(1988) Possibly the greatest baseball movie of them all. In Durham, N.C., the Bulls minor league baseball team has one asset no other can claim: a poetry-loving groupie named Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon). As the team’s season begins, Annie selects brash new recruit Ebby Calvin Laloosh (Tim Robbins), whom she christens “Nuke,” to inspire with the religion of baseball.
Nuke also receives guidance from veteran player Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), who settles Nuke’s erratic pitching and teaches him to follow the catcher’s lead.
Rent or buy: Amazon
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These are just my personal nine. I’ll probably spend today looking at my Phillies roster and hoping and praying for opening day on May 1.
In the meantime, “Play Movie!”
SOURCE: #payuphollywood
Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on Twitter at @colinthewriter1
