My Favorite Sports Movie

I am a huge football fan.  (That's American Football to you readers in Europe.  We call your "football" soccer here.)  I will watch a game between two second tier college teams if I come across it on TV and there is no other football games more pressing to me.  The action is thrilling, the hits dynamic and the scores are well worth the time I spend watching them.

My second favorite sport is basketball.  I love the energy that those players have to run up and down the court, and the game can change at any moment.  Especially interesting is the playoffs, both in college (known as the "March Madness") and in professional basketball.  Like football, on any given day a team can have a streak going for them and defeat a much better team, so you never really can be sure who will win.

Third on my list is hockey.  The speed of hockey is what draws me more than anything, and a 1-0 final score is a really great defensive game.  Scoring can be higher, especially if the goalies are having an off day.

At a distant fourth is baseball.  At least with the other three sports you have a lot of action and there is some sense of when it is going to end.  Baseball never ends in a tie, however.  I saw one playoff game between my beloved Houston Astros against the rival Atlanta Braves which went 18 innings and lasted almost 6 hours.  (The longest game in Major League Baseball,  by the way, went 25 innings and lasted a whopping 8 hours.)

Baseball itself can be interesting, to a point, but there is waaaaaaaaaay too much down time between the action.  There's a reason why they call the break in the seventh inning "the Seventh Inning Stretch".  If you've been sitting down through that many innings you probably need the chance to get up or your legs might atrophy...

"So, Quiggy", you might ask, "why is your favorite sports movie about the sport of baseball?  Why didn't you pick The Longest Yard (which has some of the best football action in any football movie)? Why not Hoosiers (which is a damn good basketball film)?  Or even Slap Shot or Miracle (both of which give us some beautiful hockey action)? Or any others you might have come up with that don't involve baseball..."

Some of it has to do with my love of history. Eight Men Out beautifully captures the spirit of the times, even if it's focus is on one of the more disreputable events of the early 20th century.  (And if you want to delve into the scandal I highly recommend the book on which the movie was based Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof.)

But the second is that it has a collection of some of the greatest character actors of the time. Some of them may have escaped your notice, and in fact when I tell people about this movie, most who are not as avid movie watchers as I am will say "Who?" when I mention almost any other name besides John Cusack or Charlie Sheen.

But just look at the some of the names.  David Strathairn plays Eddie Cicotte.  I fist latched on to Strathairn when he appeared in the Robert Redford vehicle Sneakers where he played a blind computer hacker (and did it so well I actually thought the actor was blind until I saw him in this movie, which actually preceded Sneakers but I didn't watch until after that movie).

David Strathairn as Eddie Cicotte

Clifton James plays the White Sox Owner Charles Comiskey.  James is memorable as one of only two characters played by the same actor in multiple James Bond movies.  (He plays Sgt J. W. Pepper in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun).

Clifton James as Charles Commiskey

 Michael Rooker plays Chick Gandil.  Rooker came to prominence as the titular character in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and also appeared prominently in Mississippi Burning  and as Yondu in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy.

Michael Rooker as "Chick" Gandil

John Mahoney is familiar to many as the father on the TV show Frasier.  Kevin Tighe was one of the paramedics on the 70's TV show Emergency!  And Michael C. Lerner who plays gambling bigwig Arnold Rothstein was a runner-up for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Barton Fink.

John Mahoney (R) as "Kid" Gleason

Kevin Tighe as "Sport" Sullivan

 Other names you might or might not recognize include John Anderson, D. B. Sweeney and Studs Terkel (who was not known as an actor, but was a prominent writer in his day.)

Eight Men Out barely managed to crack the top 30 in  Digital Dream Door's Top 100 Sports Movies, beaten out by Bull Durham, Pride of the Yankees, and The Natural.  (as well, as Field of Dreams, but you can see my opinion on that particular movie here.  Other websites put up even more movies they consider better.  I'm not disparaging any of them.  But I think Eight Men Out deserves a better ranking than just a figurative "also ran".

Eight Men Out (1988):

The 1919 Chicago White Sox are at the top of their game.  Not only do they easily win the American League pennant (before 1969 only the team with the best record advanced, there were no playoffs) and were almost assured of beating the crap out the National League champion, the Cincinnati Reds in their 9 game World Series.  (Note: for several years the best of 7 games for the series was changed to 9, before reverting back to best of 7.)

Charles Commiskey (Clifton James), portrayed as a cheap penny-pinching miser has engendered a lot of hatred by the players.  He refuses to give bonuses, pays the players a pittance compared to their counterparts on other teams, and even at one point pays the players a bonus in champagne (which is flat...).  As such it easy to see how some players could fall victim to a plan to "fix" the Series.  Whether or not such players as "Chick" Gandil (Michael Rooker), "Swede" Risberg (Don Harvery) and Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) had any "legitimate" reasons for siding with the gamblers for what seemed better money, the fact of the matter was that the members of the team that conspired to throw the Series, something that although had not been done on such a grand level had been done in the past.  Albeit only for insignificant games during the season.

What happens is two separate coterie of gangsters try to convince a smattering of key players to throw the series.  Gandil is the mastermind of the fix on the players side, but he is at the whims of Bill Burns (Christopher Lloyd) and Billy Maharg (Richard Edson) in one corner and "Sport" Sullivan (Kevin Tighe) and Abe Attell (Michael Mantell) in the other.  Atell has close connections with bigwig Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner), but even Rothstein double crosses in this bait and switch atmosphere of big league gambling.

It should be no surprise that nobody can trust anybody else.  The players are promised one amount, but in the end they are only granted a pittance of the claimed payday.  The gamblers try to claim that much of the money is out on bets and that the players will eventually get paid after tey have performed their duties.  Needless to say there is some backbiting amongst the players and at one point several of them decide to say screw it, let's see if we can win.  But you know anything you know you can't double-cross the gambling syndicate.

Eventually the result is exactly the way the gamblers wanted it.  But several reporters with long-noses try to sniff out the truth behind the White Sox collapse in the series.  These include Hugh Fullerton (Studs Terkel) and the famed writer, then sports writer Ring Lardner (played by director John Sayles, who, by the way, actually looks a lot like Ring Lardner.  not sure if that's fancy make up magic or he actually does resemble the writer).

Ring Lardner

John Sayles as Ring Lardner

After uncovering enough evidence, eight former players are brought to trial.  Included are the aforementioned Cicotte, Gandil and Risberg, as well as "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (D. B. Sweeney), "Happy" Felsch (Charlie Sheen), "Lefty" Williams (James Read), Fred McMullin (Perry Lang) and "Buck" Weaver (John Cusack)  What follows is what was the trial of the century (or at least the trial of the early part of the century since it was only 20 years old at the time...)  ."Buck" Weaver for his part uses every opportunity to get himself separated from the rest since, although he knew about the fix, he refused to play anything but his best, as his record would show.  But he is denied that right.  As a result he stands trial with the rest of them.

The Eight Black Sox

Meanwhile the owners hire a commissioner to clean up baseball.  Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (John Anderson) establishes that he as commissioner must have absolute control over his position and that the position must be for life, in order to not have the position open to playing favorites.  His first act as the newly formed position of Baseball commissioner is to ban the eight "Black Sox" for life and establishing the ground rules about gambling that the same should happen to anyone else who has knowledge of illegal gambling activities.  (Thus setting the precedent that has thus far kept Pete rose out of the Baseball Hall of Fame).

The baseball action in the movie is top notch.  Sayles could be given great credit to not only finding great actors, but ones who could pull off convincing baseball moves.  D> B> Sweeney in particular looks good, mainly because he is by nature a right-hander, but practiced hard to convince people he was the left-handed Joe Jackson.

Watch it for the baseball.  Watch it for the history.  Hell, watch it for the music.  Sayles got that right too, with some pretty good jazz numbers that befit the era.

Well folks, I'm outta here.  Drive safely.

Quiggy

The Boys of Summer

This is my entry in the Box Office Jocks Blogathon hosted by Dubism and Return to the 80's

When it comes to movies about sports, second only to football, for me, is baseball.  Known as "America's pastime, baseball has a history that dates back to before any of you were even born.  And it even has enjoyed a heyday when even football was just the new upstart on the block.  Baseball was more commonly referenced in the 40's and 50's on old radio shows which I think proves it being more popular and well-known than football in it's day.

You gotta admit that if you ask someone to name the greatest sports players of all time, many on the list will be baseball players.  Just off the top of my head I think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and from my own childhood and adult years, Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Roger Clemens, etc.

The baseball phenomenon may have diminished some in the years (I guess it depends on who you ask), but a baseball game is still the highlight of a kid's life.  Even an adult's life.  I, for one, never got to see a professional baseball game until I was in my 40's, but I can still fondly remember going to see my beloved Houston Astros take on the hated in-state rival Texas Rangers.  (This was when the Astros were still in the National League, so a match-up between the two was a rarity by comparison to today when they are both in the same division of the American League).

Major League (1989) and Major League II (1993):

In 1954 the Cleveland Indians won 111 games, a record that stood for 40+ years as the most wins for an American League team, and went to the World Series (where they lost to the New York Giants).  By 1960, the Indians had started on a downward spiral.  By 1989, the time of this movie, the Indians had been in a slump never finishing better than fourth in the AL.  (Note: For many of those years there were only two divisions in the AL,unlike the three in modern days, but still, 4th wasn't all that great, but at least they weren't in the "cellar" those years).

For the 1989 season, Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) the widow and new owner of the Indians, has a dynamic plan.  A spoiled rotten former Las Vegas showgirl, she wants to move the team to Florida.  But the city of Cleveland has a contract with the team and a move is pretty much impossible.  But she has found a clause in the contract that will allow her to declare it null and void if attendance for games falls below 800,000 for the season.  So she plans to get a bunch of losers and has-beens to be on the team, thus, hopefully finishing "dead last" in the league.

Rachel Phelps

To do this requires pulling in a bunch of misfits.  Along with an aging catcher, Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) , a pitcher whose better days were in the past, Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross) and a pretty boy dilettante shortstop, Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen),  she has the team send out invitations to some pretty low rent candidates.  These include a voodoo enthusiast hitter named Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and a pitcher with a wild and uncontrollable fast ball Rick Vaughn (Charlie Sheen).  Vaughn, by the way, has come from a prior position as a pitcher on the California Penal League.  He was arrested for stealing a car.  Added into the mix is another hitter who thinks more of his ability than he really has, Willie Mays Hays (Wesley Snipes).  To manage the team, they get a guy whose only experience has been coaching minor league teams, Lou Brown (James Gammon),

Roger Dorn, Rick Vaughn and Jake Taylor

(L-R) ???, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hays and Eddie Harris

With this lineup, the perennial seem destined to fulfill Rachel's dreams.  The early season plays a bit like a scene from the Keystone Kops.  Errors abound.  The team slumps.  But they are sticking to the middle of the pack in the standings.  So Rachel starts to take away some of the more privileged amenities from the team to induce them to play bad.  Like hot water in the showers.  And subsiting a twin engine prop plane for the egregious jet to take the team on road trips (and then, that failing, making them ride a bus).

When Rachel's plan becomes apparent, Brown finds the motivation for the team.  If they improve enough to win the AL division series her hopes will be dashed.  And, of course, they proceed to try to get better as a result.  Spoiler alert! If you want to watch this movie and the sequel first, you should skip down to the part where I talk about Harry Doyle.

Of course, the Indians do win the division series.  Flash forward to the events of the sequel, Major League II.  In this film, the Indians had gone on to the AL championship series, but lost to the Chicago White Sox.  Now they are trying to mount another attack on the ultimate prize, a trip to the World Series.  Fortunately for the team, Rachel sold the team to Roger Dorn, so she is no longer a problem to the team.

But unfortunately, in the interim, many of the team players have become somewhat of a dilettante bunch themselves.  In particular, the ace pitcher, Vaughn (who had been known as "Wild Thing") is in a slump.   Much of this seems to be attributed to the fact that he has renounced his wild image and become more sedate in his lifestyle.  The rest of the cast has also let stardom go to their heads.  All except Cerrano, who has become even more devout, but this time has added Buddhism to his repertoire.

The team starts to slump again, and worse, Dorn is in bad financial straits and has to sell the team back to Rachel. That plus the loss of a major star hitter,  Jack Parkman (David Keith), who left the team to join the rival White Sox.  So what motivates the team to mount another attack?  Well, initially it's the heart attack that Lou suffers.  (No, he doesn't die...this ain't Rocky III...)

In both movies there is a side love story going on.  In Major League, Taylor tries to get back with his ex-wife, with whom he still retains a love, despite his amorous adventures he had both while married and now as a divorced man.  And in Major League II, the focal point is on Vaughn, who has a relationship with his manager, Rebecca Flannery (Allison Doody), but is still in love with his former girlfriend, Nicki (Michelle Burke).

Another cast member that shines is Randy Quaid as a fan of the Indians who initially is optimistic about the teams chances, but grows increasingly disgruntled, even alienating his seatmates to the point where they relegate him to a seat by himself in the nosebleed section of the outfield.


 Harry Doyle:

One of the highlights of both films is Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker), the play-by-play announcer for the Indians radio broadcast.  Harry tries to rally the fans, despite the Keystone Kops antics of the team.

"Juuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit outside!" (said after a wild pitch by Vaughn that misses the batter's box by a mile.)

"This guy threw at his own son in a father-son game."

"Heywood leads the league in most offensive categories, including nose hair."

"Well, the Indians have a runner, I think I'll wet my pants."

"We've got a real nail biter, here, folks.  It's a lot closer than the 11-2 score."

And by far my favorite, an exchange between Doyle and his color man:

"One hit???  That's all we got is one goddamn hit?"
"Harry, you can't say 'goddamn' on the air."
"Ah, don't worry about it.  Nobody's listening anyway."

Bob Uecker has had a great life, if you ask me.  He played baseball for real back in the 60's, playing for five years, and holding what I think is still the record for the lowest batting average for a career (.200).  To his credit, however he was a great defensive player in his position as a catcher.

Uecker moved from the playing field to become a broadcast announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers, and also being a color man on national TV broadcasts.  But it his frequent role in Miller Lite commercials in the late 70's and early 80's is probably what he is most remembered, especially for folks in my age bracket.  That exposure lead to a TV series, Mr. Belvedere, in which he played a sportscaster who  hires the titular character to be a butler for his family.  And, BTW, to his role in the Major League movies.  (No, despite the fact that he had been a broadcaster, it was his performance in the commercials that got the attention of the producers of the movies.)

Uecker has written two autobiographies.  The first one, Catcher in the Wry, is a hoot.  You really get an idea of what a consummate comedian he would have made had he chosen that outlet instead of baseball.  I haven't come across the second one, Catch 222, but I imagine it's probably pretty good.

Oh, NO! Not Costner, Again!

I will be up front, at the beginning.  I loathe Kevin Costner.  Many of his movies go on for about 2 hours AFTER  I get tired of watching him.  The Postman and Waterworld are two of the most egregious examples of how what is essentially a 30 minute TV show can be expanded to interminable lengths, forcing one to put up with crap that would have prison inmates claiming "cruel and unusual punishment".  I am also not a fan of Dances with Wolves, but I realize I am in the minority there.

This is not to say I don't like ANY movie that has Costner in it.  I think The Untouchables  was fantastic, but even Costner couldn't ruin a film featuring the great Robert De Niro (and Sean Connery, to boot).  And, truth be told, I am not so negative about his performance in Silverado, but there is also enough of an ensemble cast in that one that he, fortunately, doesn't command the screen time that he would in later films.

On the same note, I also hate sappy, feel good movies.  It is for this reason I would never linger on the Hallmark Channel for longer than it takes me to realize I HAVE stopped channel surfing on the Hallmark Channel.  Maybe its because I have such a cynical outlook on life, but chipper Pollyanna-ish characters tend to make me wanna barf.  Put "sappy, feel good" together with Kevin Costner and you have the makings, for me, of an ulcer that a full box of Alka-Seltzer couldn't remedy.

So it goes without saying that I'd find Field of Dreams one of the most annoying movies ever made, right? Well, that would be absolutely true.  The whole thing just reeks of hippie hopefulness and unrealistic optimism.  And yet...  I do watch it, and even me, the hard-hearted cynic, can't help but find out someone stuck a water faucet behind my eyes when the pivotal scene occurs in which the young baseball player Archie Graham steps across the base line that marks the boundary of the titular field of dreams, to become the elderly Dr. Archibald Graham in order to help an injured child, and it is revealed that he can't go back across the line.

Field of Dreams is an anomaly in many respects.  It is a sports movie that really doesn't have much in the way of "sports" going on in it.  Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, in their book "The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies" list it as #11 on their list of the greatest sports movies, but although the movie centers on the sport of baseball, there are only a few key scenes in which we actually see any baseball action.  (It was the fact of  my currently reading of this book that prompted this week's review)

Most of the movie centers around either Ray's (Kevin Costner) attempt to transform his Iowa corn field into a baseball diamond, or his attempts to quell the voices in his head trying to get him to do these weird things he does in the movie.

You probably already know the movie by heart (if you are a fan), or at least know the gist of the movie (if you are not a fan).  It has, since it's premiere in 1989, worked it's way into the zeitgeist of the film lover's society, as well as into the lexicon of the average American.  Who in this day and age has never heard the line "If you build it, he will come"?  And if you happen to live in Iowa, the quote: "Is this heaven?" "No, this is Iowa." is probably just as common to hear.   (NOTE: I've never even been to Iowa, I'm only guessing that last statement is true, but if it's not Iowa has been sleeping on the job in terms of self-promotion...)

Spoiler alert!:  This review covers the entire movie, including the ending, so don't read any further if you want to watch it first.

The story, based on a novel, Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella.  In the novel the main character, Ray, is told by a voice "if you build it, he will come", which Ray takes to mean his baseball hero "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, one of the disgraced members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox team that threw the World Series for payoffs from the gambling community.  The movie follows the book predominantly, with a few to be expected changes here and there.

In essence Ray is obsessed with building a baseball field in his cornfield.

His wife, Annie (Amy Madigan), is supportive of him to fulfill his dreams.  (And herein is one of those annoying parts of the movie.  I find the hippie outlook evinced by Madigan as Annie to be extremely grating.  There again is my own pessimistic outlook on life judging the character, but be that as it may.)  Annie's brother, Mark (Timothy Busfield), is a realist. (Not too much unlike myself, I guess.)  He tries to convince Ray that the farm is going to go down the tubes and that he, Ray, will lose it unless he replants the plowed under corn.

Ray is insistent on his dreams, however, and after creating his baseball field dream, he hears the same voice telling him to "ease his pain".  He is unsure of the meaning of this urging until, while at a meeting discussing the banning of the books by an author, he comes to realize that the author in question, Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones), is the person to whom it is on Ray to "ease his pain".  (In the book it is the real author J.D. Salinger, whose "Catcher in the Rye" was and still is on some banned books lists to whom the character Ray infers the message of "ease his pain".)

Ray goes to Boston and essentially kidnaps Mann and forces him to go to a baseball game in Fenway park.  While at the park, Ray hears another message; "go the distance".  He infers this to mean he must get a one-shot player Archie Graham to his field.  But it turns out Graham is dead and has been for years.  He did, however, move on from his one-shot playing to be a renowned and well-respected doctor in his home community.

While mulling this over, Ray somehow ends up back in 1972 where he meets the elderly doctor who expresses no regrets for missing out on baseball stardom.  Ray ends up back in the present, and with Mann, drive back to Iowa.  They pick up a young hitchhiker on the way, an ambitious young man who introduces himself as Archie Graham, and expresses a desire to play baseball.  Ultimately, the three arrive at the cornfield/baseball field where "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, who had arrived earlier, has brought with him the other team members of the 1919 "Black Sox".  They invite the young Graham to play with them.

While they are playing, Mark arrives with papers to sign for ray to sell the farm.  Mark does not see the players on the field, his mind is too closed to see the dream.  While arguing with Ray, Ray's young daughter is knocked to the ground, unconscious.  The aforementioned scene of the young baseball player Graham (Frank Whaley) crossing the foul line to become the old doctor Graham (Burt Lancaster) occurs at this point, and it would take a hard heart indeed not to well up in tears, especially after it is revealed he once again gave up his dream of baseball to do so.

At this point even Mark can see the players and is astonished.  He also tells Ray that he should NOT sell the farm.  As Terrence Mann tells Ray at the end:

"Ray, people will come, Ray.  They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom.  They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it.  They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.  'Of course, we won't mind if you look around,' you'll say. 'It's only $20 per person.'  They'll pass over the money, without even thinking about it.  For it is money they have...and peace they lack.  And they'll walk out to the bleachers, sit in shirt sleeves, on a perfect afternoon.  They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes.  And they'll watch the game and it will be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters.  The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.  The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.  America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers.  It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.  But baseball has marked the time.  This field, this game...it's a part of or past, Ray.  It reminds us of all that was once good and it could be again.  Oh, people will come Ray.  People most definitely will come."

And the movie closes with a vast line of cars lined up to visit the "field of dreams."

See what I mean about "sappy, feel good"?  The whole thing makes me want to slap Ray in the face, and, like Loretta Castorini, yell at him "Snap out of it!"  And yet, despite my dislike for Kevin Costner and my aversion to these kinds of movies, I still find myself drawn to it.  Could I eventually, after enough viewings, find myself on the sidelines cheering on Costner as one of his many of his ardent fans?  I doubt it.  Will I eventually want to run out have a Benji movie marathon (Benji movies being the ultimate 70's sappiness)?  Geez, I hope not.  It goes without saying, I'm sure, that if you expect me someday to review The Bodyguard or Bull Durham or (God help us!) Message in a Bottle, you ought to lay off the wacky weed for a while.  But I guess I can take Field of Dreams a few more times before I start thinking about shooting my DVD player...

Quiggy