Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Best Baseball Movies

Of all professional sports, the game of baseball remains most embedded in the American psyche, evoking our collective history and character like no other athletic endeavor. Baseball embodies a romantic, heroic quality that’s completely American: it represents life as it should be, and once was, when our country was young and full of possibilities.

I’ve heard some dissenters claim the game is slow. That’s like saying Marilyn Monroe was pale- it’s missing the point.

It seems like no coincidence then that there are more great movies on baseball than on any other sport.

We begin with the grand-daddy of them all, “The Pride Of The Yankees” (1942). Starring Gary Cooper, the film’s uplifting portrayal of Lou Gehrig’s life and career makes baseball a metaphor for our nation’s noblest defining traits: determination, humility, and raw courage. When first released, the movie was potent inspiration for a country newly at war, and it’s held up beautifully over the years. The magnetic Cooper was never better, and it’s a treat to get a glimpse of the legendary Babe Ruth playing himself in this picture. A sentimental chestnut that resists growing stale.

One overlooked winner from the fifties is “Fear Strikes Out” (1957), relating the true story of Jim Piersall, a talented player from the Red Sox who faced down not only curve balls, but mental illness. “Fear” was the talented Robert Mulligan’s first feature, and notably, the film’s producer would also soon switch to directing: Alan J. Pakula. Anthony Perkins plays young Piersall with just the right vulnerability, and Karl Malden does a breathtaking turn as Piersall’s driven Dad. “Fear” also teaches a vital lesson about keeping the game in proportion, win or lose.

My next pick, “Bang The Drum Slowly” (1973), is notable for a stellar early Robert De Niro performance. Tracing the relationship between an ambitious pitcher (Michael Moriarty) and his loyal catcher who becomes mortally ill (De Niro), the film portrays how fate and tragedy can bond together the most unlikely of people. ( Trivia point: “Bang The Drum” had actually originated on television seventeen years before, with a young Paul Newman in Moriarty’s role.)

Fast-forward fifteen years to John Sayles’s “Eight Men Out” (1988). This engrossing film recreates one of the darkest moments in baseball history-the fixing of the 1919 World Series, where members of the White Sox team were bribed by gambling interests to throw games . The resulting scandal demolished the careers of many fine ballplayers, and almost brought down baseball itself. Director/writer Sayles creates rich period flavor, and his script does full justice to this astounding true story. His cast of rising young actors are also uniformly strong, including John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, and David Strathairn.

Kevin Costner, not one of my favorite actors overall, did distinguish himself in two baseball movies. The first, “Bull Durham” (1988), a wry, salty comedy, focuses on the dynamics between two very different teammates- one, a seasoned veteran (Costner), the other, a wild rookie hotshot (Robbins). This time out, there’s also a woman in-between, nicely played by Susan Sarandon. Still, Robbins steals the movie in a funny, showy role.

Costner’s second outing is Phil Alden Robinson’s sublime fantasy, “Field Of Dreams” (1989), where the star plays one Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who obeys an inner voice telling him to turn part of his land into a baseball field. This is a beautifully realized, old-fashioned movie about human qualities we revere but don’t see enough anymore: faith, hope, and redemption. James Earl Jones provides magnificent support as a reclusive writer who reluctantly joins Kinsella on his mystical crusade, and Ray Liotta is also solid as “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (the same character played by D.B.Sweeney in “Eight Men Out”). A mellowing Burt Lancaster is also on-hand, turning in an assured, late-career performance.

Another worthy effort offers a decidedly different spin on baseball: Penny Marshall’s “A League Of Their Own” (1992), with Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell and-believe it or not- Madonna. “League” chronicles the rise and fall of the all-girls baseball league which filled the gap for fans during the male deprived World War Two years. By turns heartwarming and hilarious, the movie also features one of Tom Hanks’ most colorful performances as a former baseball star-turned-alcoholic manager. And all the female players under his shaky leadership make up a terrific ensemble.

For rabid fans and students of the game’s history, documentarian Ken Burns’s epic-scale series “Baseball” (1994) is essential viewing. Flavorful and meticulously detailed ( the full series spans ten DVDs), “Baseball” blends period stills, footage, and music, with incisive commentary from some of the game’s foremost experts and devotees. This just may be the talented Burns’s finest hour.

I close with Billy Crystal’s “61*”(2001), a film that cuts off another pungent slice of baseball history, tracing the famous 1961 season and the race between Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper) to break Babe Ruth’s single season home-run record. The movie contrasts Mantle’s reckless, effortless charisma with Maris’s natural reserve, which caused New York fans to turn against the shy, serious man who’d go on to break the Babe’s record that year. Actor/ director Crystal’s well-known affection for the game permeates this film, and his casting of the two leads is inspired, not only because they can both act, but since they so closely resemble their real-life counterparts. (Also look for Crystal’s daughter Jennifer playing Maris’s wife.)

So, get your popcorn, your hot franks, your cold beer. Then sit back and enjoy these cinematic home-runs.