Baseball movies, damn it, BASEBALL MOVIES!

Ah, it's a documentary--thank goodness.

The Yankees and White Sox will play in Iowa near the “Field of Dreams” on August 13, 2020.

Unlike the film, not all the players will be white.

https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-white-sox-game-at-field-of-dream-site

Knuckleball! is on HBOMax, will try to watch it this weekend.

^is this the Tim Wakefield story?

It's My Turn--Claudia Weill's big mainstream film from 1981; not particularly good--has a 10-minute segment at a Yankees' Old-Timers game, where Jill Clayburgh goes to see recently retired Michael Douglas. Um, putting that aside, a few famous players get some screen time: Mantle, Maris, Elston Howard, Whitey Ford, and Bob Feller. (Do non-Yankees get Old-Timer invites?) Plus a few others the camera just glides by--felt like I should have recognized some of them, but I didn't.

Christgau answering reader e-mail today:

Would you tell us about your opinion of baseball movies? Are they realistic? Writing as an outsider and not knowing but realising that any movie made about soccer is usually pretty s*** makes me wonder do you have the same feeling about your national sport — Hugh, West of Ireland

“Realistic”? Having spent approximately 15 minutes of my life in a major league dugout (profile of underrated Mets shortstop Rafael Santana, 1987 or ’88 I think), I have no way of judging. But I can call to mind many convincing, insightful , and/or entertaining baseball movies. I guess my favorite is the hilarious but also incisive and exciting Moneyball, about assembling a winning Oakland A’s team on a zero budget, based on a book by Michael Lewis, whose The Big Short inspired an even better movie about the 2008 mortgage scam crisis. And just recently Carola and I streamed and enjoyed an impertinent documentary called Battered Bastards of Baseball, about a nutty yet winning minor-league team constructed from scraps when I forget which major league team pulled its franchise from Portland, Oregon. But there are many others: A League of Their Own about a women’s baseball league; The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, about a team of touring ex-Negro League players; Bang the Drum Slowly, starring my once-great Dartmouth downstairs neighbor Michael Moriarty and a young Robert de Niro and based on a Mark Harris novel; the only slightly watered-down Jackie Robinson biopic 42; the much older b&w Fear Strikes Out, about the great bipolar Red Sox centerfielder Jimmy Piersall; the kiddie comedy The Bad News Bears. For some reason I’ve never seen the renowned Field of Dreams, which I suspected and indeed still suspect of pretentious sentimentality, though I’d probably watch it were it to stream free somewhere. I’ve never seen the Lou Gehrig biopic The Pride of the Yankees either. Is there a Babe Ruth one I’m forgetting?

Didn't know about Facing Nolan until today, when something turned up on my FB wall--it's on Netflix. I thought it was far from great. The best thing was seeing actual game footage of a story I probably thought was apocryphal: Norm Cash coming to the plate with a sawed-off table leg. He was the last out of one of the early no-hitters (Ron Luciano was behind the plate). As a title card dramatically announces later in the film, "Robin Ventura declined to be interviewed for this film."

Early in the film, Rod Carew says something about "I knew I'd go 0-4" whenever he faced Ryan. For his career (73 AB), Carew hit .301 vs. Ryan. (and slugged .562).

If your lifetime average is .328, maybe .301 feels like 0-4.

I haven't watched this, and probably won't--it's over an hour long--but it does look interesting: baseball movies ranked #1-40 according to how convincingly the actors play baseball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xeamHyi9u8

https://images.wsj.net/im-738201/?width=600&size=1

so the director of tár basically invented big league chew

Had no idea that Reggie's been sitting there on Prime since March.

About as good as the Yogi doc, although being my era, more personally significant to me. Interviewees: Aaron, Fingers and Rudi, Stewart and Blue, Julius Erving, Jeter (also in the Yogi film--in line to be the next go-to Dave Grohl or Dick Cavett). I think most of the famous moments are there, including the play that forced him to miss the '72 WS, although two from the '78 WS are missing: his non-interference on the basepaths, and his showdown with Bob Welch. His relationship with Munson is glossed over a bit--Reggie says it was Munson who came up with Mr. October; Bill James disputes that, says it was Reggie himself--and he doesn't mention Munson's death. The footage of him getting pulled by Martin on national TV is as jarring as ever--I know players still occasionally get into it in the dugout (I remember Machado and Tatis), but having to get a cop in there to hold back the manager belongs to another world. Very focused on race, both during Jackson's career and later, his disappointment at being shut out from the inner circles of management and being denied two ownership bids.

It's so strange for me to see him as what he is now: a soft-spoken old guy. Has there ever been a signing in sports like his with the Yankees in '77? Probably lots of them in other sports I don't follow, and if Ohtani goes to L.A., that'll be huge. But it was such an incredible intersection of time and place and personalities (Reggie, Steinbrenner, Martin), juiced a little more by the newness of free agency.

His HR in the '71 ASG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfc9xnZsvZo

Just thought of an odd omission, which you think--thinking about the game today--Reggie would turn into a badge of honour: he still holds the career records for strikeouts. Surprised--and unless Stanton gets a few fulltime seasons in, there's no one on the horizon for at least a decade.

I may have mentioned this upthred but the nolan ryan one is dogshit

I didn't dislike it that much, but I said it was "far from great" upthread. Too worshipful is my general recollection.

i can't imagine it's a classic, but i am definitely intrigued by this one

https://i.imgur.com/oIHaVsz.jpg

omg

joe mantegna??

yup!!

Turned up on one of those YouTube sidebars for me--this is the Reggie that Reggie missed (or, more accurately, stayed clear of).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUe7XzpiTQ

A two-part Zoomcast I did with Steven Rubio on baseball movies: The Bad News Bears, Bingo Long, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, Reggie.

part one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBKIUt6bbbo&t

part two: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-TnrBFcfTA

Moneyball, too.

Finally caught up with the Dock Ellis documentary (on Prime right now). I can't believe it's been 15 years since he died--I wasn't even thinking that he was dead as I watched. The rare film where I didn't squirm through a little bit of crying; especially great is this letter Ellis reads from Jackie Robinson. The film doesn't shy away from the way he treated his one ex-wife. There's some disbelief from a few ex-teammates about how bad the trade was that sent him to the Yankees in 1976; they're right, but that had a lot more to do with Willie Randolph than with Ellis (who had one good season and moved on). Dock Ellis for Doc Medich--perfect.

skipped around the baseball movie countdown video, he correctly gives props to A League Of Their Own... it's too bad the Amazon series didn't take a cue from the movie, so much painful CGI baseball in that one.

Sitting there at two in the morning last night and got caught up in a couple of episodes of Ken Burns' opus. PBS has evidently been re-running it. I saw it when it debuted and once more a few years later. I know its sentimentality and stylistic tics get mocked a lot, and yes, it's too New-York-centric, but I still think of it as a true epic.

I was right about Brooks Robinson and "Theme from Shaft" (which gives way to some swampy instrumental). Lots of great music in the last two episodes: Santana for Clemente, the Youngbloods for Earl Weaver (my favourite--inspired), Otis Redding for Frank Robinson. The color footage of Jackie Robinson's funeral is amazing (Bill Russell and Don Newcombe among the pallbearers, Campanella in his wheelchair). Sandy Koufax's retirement press conference. Bowie Kuhn with a frozen, fake smile as Robinson calls for a black manager on national TV. Everyone talking about Bob Gibson in an awestruck tone. George Will summarized football with a rehearsed line that made me cringe a little. Dragged myself away around when they got to 1973, but I'm going to watch this again within the next few months. (Gyac, I don't know if you have access, but I'm pretty sure on the whole you would love it.)

(And the kind of thing I love: "Mao Tse Tung, Satchel Paige, and Casey Stengel died.")

As for those stylistic tics:

i can't look at buck o'neil without slowing zooming and panning
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 12:25 AM (two years ago)

I don't think I've ever seen even a part of the Burns doc - When It Was A Game was my go-to for old timey footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPG-yxB6_E

The one with all the color footage from the '40s and '50s, right? I watched the first one--I believe there was a second.

Three total, I think the last may have come out way later.

Aside from baseball, I was hooked by the look of that home movie Kodachrome once they got into the color era.

Not a movie, but just watched the MLB Network's George Brett documentary/profile. As I've said before, one of the most memorable players I was able to see for the duration of his career, from his playoff heroics against the Yankees in the '70s to the Pine Tar Game to killing the Jays in the '85 ALCS. (Because I was a little bit off baseball from '79 to '82, I followed his pursuit of .400 through the paper but wasn't as caught up in it as I normally would have been.) Had a toxic relationship with his father, who sounded like a true nightmare.

Turned up in a sidebar, first time I've ever seen this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvaZlsi5rLs