Rumours of the fabled lesbian Director's Cut still circulate the Internet |
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That whole ‘baseball' thing- it's the quintessential American sport. We don't have baseball, to speak of, over here in Australia. Yeah, sure, maybe by way of comparison you guys don't have Australian Rules Football, but really, you're not missing out on a giant amount. Australian Rules has none of the mystique, none of the rich history of baseball. It doesn't feature nearly so highly in the national culture. And baseball is one of the few sports that, despite being based almost exclusively in one country, has achieved worldwide recognition. Baseball doesn't feature the worldwide arena of, say, soccer's World Cup, but the name Babe Ruth is just as recognisable as the names of soccer superstars like Beckham, Pele or Ronaldo.
So it's unsurprising that the sport's been given the Hollywood treatment time and time again. Something that occupies such a place in American culture was destined to inspire scripts, to call to the imaginations of writers, actors and directors. The passions that fuel the players, that fuel the fans- this is the kind of stuff that a good writer can wring a great story from. And many have. A good sports movie has an energy all its own, and when that's coupled with a history as rich as that of the ball game, great movies can come about.
The first baseball movie I can remember seeing, and one that's still near and dear to my heart, is the 1989 classic MAJOR LEAGUE. Sure, the sequels were terrible, and the movie shows its age in parts, but the elements that made it a good film when it was first released are still present. Starring a youthful Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes (and a slightly less youthful Tom Berenger and Corbin Bernsen) it's an underdog story in every way shape and form. The new owner of the Cleveland Indians, the showgirl widow of the previous owner, has a plan to get a new contract in Miami- field the worst team of misfits and has-beens that the game has ever seen. Instead of going down in flames according to plan, the team comes together and fights their way up the rankings. And in the romantic sub-plot, Tom Berenger fights to rescue his old flame from her new relationship. The writing is sharp, the acting is good, and the sense of camaraderie could only come from an eighties movie. Sure, it's a lightweight comedy/drama, but by the end, the desire to see the team win is just as strong as it is in any Rocky movie.
MAJOR LEAGUE is very definitely a male-oriented movie. The leads are almost entirely male and the two female roles serve mainly to revolve around the male players. The flip side to this coin is the based-on-a-true-story A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. Eyebrows were raised when I hired it for from my local video store for the 
Field of Dreams 2: Night of the Living Dead was, alas, never made |
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purposes of this column, but, as far as female sporting flicks go, it's a movie that's not without its charms. Geena Davis brings an element of class to anything that she's in and Tom Hanks was at his best in the period between BIG and FORREST GUMP. As the fresh-faced farm girl Dottie, and the liquor-soaked manager Jimmy, Davis and Hanks drive the film from beginning to end. And there's a certain old-fashioned feel-good element to it, even if the music-swelling sentimentality is laid on a little thick in parts. Hanks and Jon Lovitz's sarcastic, loud-mouthed recruiting agent go a long way towards grounding the film when it goes too far into fairyfloss territory. But the real redeeming agent here is the sport itself. In a time before feminism, when the idea of women playing sports ruffled some very distinguished feathers and was a joke to most, the source of strength for the women was the game of baseball.
But when it comes to drawing strength from baseball, one movie has it hands down. True, it, too has dated since its original release, but FIELD OF DREAMS remains the best baseball movie that doesn't feature a game of baseball. Instead it bases its story on the spirit that baseball instills in people. There are flaws in it- for a start, Kevin Costner decides awfully quickly, based on a phantom voice, to build a baseball field. And James Earl Jones's speech at the end stretches credibility just a little. He's a man whose delivery can generally save even the heaviest of speeches, but even he struggles with some of the lines he's given in the closing scenes. All the same, FIELD OF DREAMS is rightly regarded as one of the highlights of Costner's career. It hits all the right notes- a man who believes, the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the power of faith. As the light dims over Costner's ballpark, it's difficult NOT to believe that baseball can fix everything that's wrong with the world. That, in its purest form, it doesn't represent innocence, sportsmanship, and basic human decency. This is the magic of the game, the core values that the movies seek to espouse.
Baseball was also the catalyst for the adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel Fever Pitch. Known as FEVER PITCH inside the US and THE PERFECT CATCH outside it, it capitalised on the surprisingly effortless chemistry between Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore and documented one of the most fanatical devotions in the world- the dedication of Boston Redsox fans. Fallon's fanaticism meets Barrymore's workaholism and the extent of how far Fallon will go to preserve his love for his team is shown. Love for a team is a powerful thing- and the siren call of baseball is a powerful one.
The Farrelly brothers managed to 
Sarandon would later ask Robbins to STOP wearing her garters |
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rein their penchant for gross-out comedy to a couple of scenes without affecting the story too much. But their command of emotional performances remained undimmed- as Fallon goes too far and Barrymore calls him to account, just how important sport can be to a man is questioned. Fortune dictated a slight re-write of the story, as the Redsox took the real-life opportunity to go ahead and take the series.
The movie that really stands out as a film about baseball and baseballers is the quirky BULL DURHAM, a movie helmed by (once again) Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon. While Robbins and Sarandon play their parts with verve, it's Costner who owns the film. As veteran ball player, Crash Davis, Costner strolls through the film with a smirk on his face and a strut in his step. Costner wears the character like a second skin and imparts an energy and professionalism that fires the film. Costner and Robbins play off each other perfectly as the veteran ball player and the arrogant rookie respectively and the film exudes all the dug-out atmosphere that makes a good baseball film. The film shines the most in the scenes where the team comes together and Costner takes effortless control of the scene. The sub-plot involving Sarandon become more and more of a distraction as the film winds on, because, for the most part, it's the ball game that fascinates, and how Costner and Robbins will finish up at the end of the movie. The turning point comes when Robbins get his big break and Costner's role as mentor starts to come to an end.
The closet nerd in me shrieks as I say this, but a good sports movie is a treasure. It has all the pleasure of watching your team deliver a fresh basket of ass-kickery to some other bunch of chumps, but two dozen times, condensed down into a two hour period. You get to see the heartache of loss and the thrill of victory. The hunger of the young and the desperation of the old are never quite as intense anywhere else as they are in a sports movie, where fortunes and lives are built and destroyed by sinew and bone. And, of course, there's everyone's favourite movie moment, the montage.
Baseball is a sport with its own special mystique- the signals, the pitch, the crack of the ball on the bat. The roar of the crowd as home plate is crossed. The work that leads up to the final game, the spectacle of that game. All of it goes into a good baseball movie, whether the movie is a drama, a comedy, a love story or a combination of the three. Also, the Yankees always seem to be evil, and deserve what they get. Nevertheless, they are still an everlasting part of that immortal slice of Americana, baseball, and with that comes a place in the annals of Hollywood.
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| Simon Smithson |
Simon was crushed when he found out that 'Ghostbuster' was not an actual vocation, and so went with the next best thing - writing columns for Internet movie sites. He's working on a proton pack of his own, but it's going to take some time.
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