Baseball/Drama

42

42 is a powerful film about how one man changed baseball… and changed America. The film opens in 1945, after the end of World War II, when team executive Branch Rickey has set his mind on bringing the first black baseball player into the ranks of an American major league baseball team despite the disapproval of his advisers and team manager. A stubborn man who declares that money is green, not black or white, and claims profit as his motivation, Rickey carefully selects Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs.

Moneyball

It's amazing that Moneyball makes baseball statistics seem fascinating--but that's because it's not really a movie about numbers, and it's not really a movie about baseball, either. It's about what drives people to take risks--in this instance, Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), general manager of the Oakland A's, who's just had his best players poached by teams that can afford to pay a lot more.

The Stratton Story

James Stewart and June Allyson enjoyed one of their gee-whiz pairings in The Stratton Story, a baseball biopic with an easy swing. Stewart plays Monty Stratton, who, according to the film, is a country boy plowing the back forty when a transient scout (Frank Morgan) discovers him and hooks him up with the Chicago White Sox. Stratton has a couple of great years, only to be accidentally shot in a hunting accident, which results in his leg being amputated.

Angels In The Outfield

Pure heaven for baseball-movie fans, this charming 1951 fantasy will even make believers out of jaded younger viewers only familiar with the 1994 special effects-laden remake. A pitch-perfect Paul Douglas stars as "Guffy" McGovern, the brawling manager of the last-place, laughing stock Pittsburgh Pirates. The hated, profanity-spewing McGovern is touched by an angel in answer to an orphan girl's prayers for the hapless team. If he cleans up his act, a roster of celestial all-stars will "help" the Pirates.

Cobb

The subject of Ron Shelton's brilliant new movie is Ty Cobb (played by Tommy Lee Jones), who was, by consensus, not only the greatest all-around baseball player who ever lived, but also the meanest, the dirtiest, the most arrogant, and the most unscrupulous. Shelton's screenplay focusses on Cobb in 1960 and 1961-seventy-three years old, dying of cancer, and writing his memoirs. There isn't a trace of sentimentality in the picture. Cobb never goes soft on us, even as he nears death; he's a monster of mythic proportions, bellowing and thrashing and belching fire right to the end.

Talent For The Game

Major League baseball scout Virgil Sweet lives for the coming of spring - the scent of fresh cut grass, the sight of blistering fast balls burrowing into a catcher's mitt, the sound of the umpire's "Play Ball." But this spring Virgil's career is threatened when the team's new owner decides to eliminate the scouting program... and Virgil along with it. His only hope lies in finding a gifted prospect to save the struggling franchise. Edward James Olmos (Academy Award® nominee for Stand andiDeliver) plays Virgil Sweet, whose career balances on a young pitching phenom (Jeff Corbett).

Soul Of The Game

In 1945, the world of baseball is divided between the Majors and the Negro Leagues - but the time has come for change. One team will be the first to sign a black player. Only one player well be the first to take the field. The Brooklyn Dodgers want to make the deal that will make history. But the man they choose will have to be more than a great player - he has to have the charisma of a star.

The Rookie

The Rookie is based on a true story about a coach who discovers that it's never too late to try and make your dreams come true. Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid) never made it out of the minor leagues before a shoulder injury ended his pitching career twelve years ago. Now a married-with-children high-school chemistry teacher and baseball coach in Texas, Jim's team makes a deal with him: if they win the district championship, Jim will try out with a major league organization.

The Pride Of The Yankees

Considered by many to be one of the greatest baseball films ever made, this is the moving true story of New York Yankee immortal, Lou Gehrig, the southpaw slugger who rose to the very top of the sport, only to be cut down at the peak of his career by an incurable illness.

Pastime

You don't have to be a baseball lover to appreciate this funny, touching story of minor-league ball and major-league dreams. Pastime is the most realistic depiction of the nonglamour side of sports as played by the people who seem to love it the most. William Russ stars as an aging pitcher, now in his 40s, who only got to pitch once in the majors. Still hanging on in the minors in the late 1950s, he can't believe his career could be over.

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