Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Batter Up

OhCaptain over at The Life and Thoughts of a Midwest Geek took the bait. He asked his readers which of a given list of topics we'd like him to address. Of the given topics, I of course picked #2 - "Posts about why certain baseball movies are good and others are bad". He gave his list. What follows is mine. I'll skip why some are bad. There are too many of those and too many reasons. I'll stick to what I like.

(I couldn't post a pictureless post! I shot this with my new lens a few days ago.)

1. Field of Dreams- This is in my top 3 movies of all time; of any genre. I wrote a whole post about this a while back. Click here to read more. In a nutshell, this scene is why I love the movie:



2. For Love of the Game- This has something for everyone. Romance for the ladies and Vin Scully for the guys. Bet you never heard "romance" and "Vin Scully" mentioned in the same sentence before!
3. 61*- Billy Crystal did a fantastic job directing this movie. It's the story of the 1961 baseball season in which Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle chase the single season homerun record.
4. The Rookie-As a husband, father, and baseball fan, the scene when Dennis Quaid calls home to tell first his wife, then his son that he made it to the big leagues melts my heart.
5. The Untouchables- Does DeNiro's use of a baseball bat qualify it as a baseball movie??? (Yes, this one is a joke.)

Then of course there are the baseball documentaries but I didn't think they would fit in the movie category. In this genre I highly recommend:
  1. Baseball by Ken Burns
  2. When It Was A Game
  3. Dodger Blue: The Championship Years
  4. MLB Memorable Moments - 30 of baseball's greatest moments. The best of the best (imho) is Kirk Gibson's bottom of the 9th home run to win the first game of the 1988 World Series for the Dodgers. It set the tone for the Dodgers to win the championship that year. I still get chills hearing Vin Scully announce it.


4 comments:

OhCaptain said...

I completely forgot about the Rookie! I'm not sure it would crack my top 3, but man does that one inspire you!!! I love the scene when the Mom has had it with this crazy dream and goes into to tuck in the son. Sees the wall of pictures and realizes that this is bigger and more important to the family then just the money.

I didn't include Ken Burns' series either. Documentaries are probably a different post all together. But if anyone asks...I'll recommend it too.

Thanks for the plug!

OhCaptain said...

BTW! Have fun at the game tomorrow night. My beloved Twins are on the west coast right now. Say 'Hi!' for me if you see them. We miss them :-)

Dillo said...

This consistently amazes me about you---that you actually like baseball! I always thought it was like watching guys in their pajamas playing in a field! But, yes, it does make for great movies (I'm not showing the links on my screen?)

Dillo said...

Aarph--it was my stupid filter thingy.....