Best Movie Coach\/Manager<\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: James Gammon <\/strong>(Lou from “Major League<\/em>“), Tom Hanks <\/strong>(Jimmy Dugan from “A League of their Own<\/em>“), Trey Wilson <\/strong>(Joe Riggens from “Bull Durham<\/em>“), Wilford Brimley <\/strong>(Pop Fisher from “The Natural<\/em>“), Walter Matthau <\/strong>(Bad News Bears<\/em>), Philip Seymore Hoffman<\/strong> (Art Howe in “Moneyball”).<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: A great set of character actors and performances here.\u00a0 Lou from Major League has some memorable lines but wasn’t much of an acting job.\u00a0 From a purely acting\/role preparation perspective its hard to argue with Tom Hanks’ portrayal of the legendary Jimmie Foxx<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pop Fisher was a good ole grandfather but didn’t exactly test the range of Wilford Brimely. \u00a0Hoffman is a fantastic actor in his own right, but by all accounts Art Howe<\/strong> isn’t even remotely like the character he played.<\/p>\nWalter Matthau probably put in the best pure acting job.\u00a0 But the late Trey Wilson’s fantastic portrayal of the manager of the Durham Bulls, including his interaction with Crash Davis<\/strong>, his shower scene speech and his fighting with the umpires were legendary.\u00a0 Winner: Trey Wilson<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\nBest Biopic of a player<\/h3>\n
Nominations: Cobb<\/em>, Pride of the Yankees<\/em>, Hustle<\/em>, The Babe<\/em>, The Rookie<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: Honestly I didn’t really care for any of these movies that much. \u00a0The most recent of them (The Rookie<\/em>) was interesting but not really that well done frankly. \u00a0Dennis Quaid<\/strong> was just a hair too old for the role and isn’t that good of an actor. \u00a0The Babe<\/em> and Cobb<\/em> were the two best shots, but both were such bad movies that one cannot pick them as the winner. \u00a0I think sentimentality dictates the winner here. \u00a0Winner: Pride of the Yankees<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\nBest Representation of Actual Baseball Events<\/h3>\n
Nominations: Eight Men Out, Soul of the Game, 61*, The Perfect Game<\/em><\/p>\nWinner: <\/span><\/strong>Eight Men Out<\/span>.<\/strong> Doesn’t romanticize the events, presents them relatively slant-free. \u00a0I liked 61* in this respect, but Billy Crystal<\/strong> didn’t have the budget he really needed to compete with the excellent period piece about the Black Sox scandal.<\/p>\n
\nBest Baseball Movie to trick your Wife into seeing <\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: How Do You Know, Fever Pitch, Summer Catch<\/em><\/p>\nWinner: Fever Pitch<\/span><\/strong>, but do you really want to see any of these movies?<\/p>\n
\nBest Baseball Movie to take your kids to see<\/h3>\n
Nominations: Rookie of the Year, Angels in the Outfield, Little Big League, Air Bud: 7th Inning Fetch, The Sandlot<\/em><\/p>\nWinner: Air Bud 7th Inning Fetch<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 Any movie where a dog gets to play baseball is a winner in my book.<\/p>\n
\nCreepiest Baseball Movie to see<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: The Bad News Bears, The Fan<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: I put in the “Bad News Bears<\/em>” as slightly “creepy” since our ideals of parenting, racial relations and what-not have changed so much since this movie was made.\u00a0 So there are many parts that will make you cringe.<\/p>\nWinner: The Fan<\/span><\/strong>: \u00a0Robert DeNiro<\/strong><\/strong> <\/strong>plays an obsessed fan of SF Giants outfielder Wesley Snipes<\/strong>.\u00a0 This wins almost by default, since I can think of no other thriller\/suspense baseball films.<\/p>\n
\nWorst Baseball Movie<\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: Major League III Back to the Minors, Hustle, The Benchwarmers, Hardball<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: There’s some pretty bad movies in here. \u00a0But nothing was as insufferable as the third edition of the Major League<\/em> franchise. \u00a0It was bad enough that they made the second edition, with Omar Epps<\/strong> badly attempting to recreate Wesley Snipes<\/strong>‘ character. \u00a0But it went downhill in the third; the writing was bad, and all the leading stars from the first two installments declined to participate, leaving Corbin Bernsen<\/strong> and Dennis Haysbert<\/strong> as the last remaining characters from the original. \u00a0Winner: Major League III<\/span>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nBest Drama<\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: The Natural, Bang the Drum Slowly, Field of Dreams, Pride of the Yankees, Moneyball<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: Moneyball <\/em>is the late entry here, garnering several Academy Award nominations and getting major Academy street cred by virtue of being written by Aaron Sorkin<\/strong>.<\/em> I’m a sucker for old school tear-jerkers like the rest of them, meaning that Bang The Drum Slowly<\/em> gets a nod. \u00a0Field of Dreams<\/em> doesn’t hold up as much for me (though I fully admit I cannot watch the last scene without crying). \u00a0Up until Moneyball’s release, the winner for me was the excellent The Natural<\/em>, despite its modified ending from the classic novel of the same name. \u00a0Winner: Moneyball<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\nBest Comedy<\/strong><\/h3>\nNominations: Major League, Bull Durham, A League of their Own, Mr. 3000, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings<\/em><\/p>\nDiscussion: There’s three very quality finalists here, if I may immediately cut the Bernie Mac<\/strong> vehecile Mr. 3000<\/em> and the obscure Bingo<\/em> movie. \u00a0Lets talk about them one by one.<\/p>\nA League of their Own<\/em> depended on the slapstick sexual references from Madonna<\/strong> for its comedy most of the time, with thinly-veiled references to her nude portrait book or the fact that “most of america has seen her naked.” \u00a0Major League<\/em> was a great comedy and had a great setup. \u00a0But for me nothing matches the subtleties and quality of the writing in Bull Durham<\/em>. \u00a0Winner: Bull Durham<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI KNOW this will generate discussion and disagreement. \u00a0Feel free to chime in with your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Editor’s note: another article that I essentially wrote in Feb of 2011 but never got around to publishing; this has been a good couple of weeks of cleaning out the drafts). Right around the time of the Academy Awards in 2011, Jim Caple wrote a fun\u00a0pre-2011 Oscar review of historical baseball movies from an Academy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1545,793,153,1107,1546,1513,1530,1518,1544,1540,1519,1541,1527,1532,628,1522,158,1534,1536,1529,1520,1514,1512,1543,1523,1539,1538,1516,1521,1542,1515,753,1510,252,1517,1528,1525,1533,1526,1524,1535,976,1511,1509,1531,1537],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-art-howe","tag-babe-ruth","tag-barry-levinson","tag-bernie-mac","tag-billy-crystal","tag-brendan-frasor","tag-charlie-sheen","tag-corbin-bernsen","tag-crash-davis","tag-dennis-haysburt","tag-dennis-quaid","tag-gary-cooper","tag-james-gammon","tag-jim-caple","tag-jim-morris","tag-jimmie-foxx","tag-jimmy-dugan","tag-joe-riggens","tag-john-goodman","tag-jon-cusack","tag-kevin-costner","tag-madonna","tag-omar-epps","tag-pedro-ceranno","tag-philip-seymore-hoffman","tag-pop-fisher","tag-randy-quaid","tag-ray-liotta","tag-robert-deniro","tag-robert-redford","tag-shoeless-joe-jackson","tag-susan-sarandon","tag-ted-williams","tag-thomas-jane","tag-tim-robbins","tag-tom-berenger","tag-tom-hanks","tag-tom-selleck","tag-tommy-lee-jones","tag-trey-wilson","tag-ty-cobb","tag-vic-morrow","tag-walter-matthau","tag-wesley-snipes","tag-wilford-brimley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7843,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/7843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}