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8 Movies About Baseball that Aren't Really About Baseball

I love my country, but I do not love its pastime.

With the warmer weather upon us, two realizations come wafting on its pleasant breeze. One: I forgot to go to the gym the entire winter. Two: I'll once again need to grapple with the mass hallucination that watching baseball is somehow enjoyable.

There is no team sport more boring than baseball. Not even soccer, because you can always turn to the Spanish language station to hear those guys scream and yell. Yet this seasonal psychosis brings with it all sorts of additional items, like the baseball film.

Some baseball films are, of course, better than others. I mean, take Barry Levinson's “The Natural.” Its ending is dripping wet from the schmaltz of Randy Newman's absurd score as Master Race spokesmodel Robert Redford slowly, slowly rounds the bases under his own objectivist fireworks (despite a Christ-like wound to the side) before dissolving to a WHEAT FIELD for a round of toss with his scrappy son as his beautiful wife looks on. This may be hokum that sends me into a fit of uncontrollable eye-rolling, but I'll at least admit that it is a well made hokum. But “Field of Dreams?” Keep that noise far away from me.

Suffice to say, I'm not the target audience for baseball movies. But this isn't to say I'm automatically against baseball used as a plot element in a film. To that end, here's a short list of good movies with baseball in them that aren't baseball movies.

"The Naked Gun"

“I must kill the Queen.”

Leslie Nielsen, Elvis' wife and a man later convicted of a double-wrongful death in a civil trial all join forces to rescue a monarch. When Khan Noonien Singh somehow takes over the mind of Reggie Jackson (creator of the Reggie bar) all hell breaks loose at a big baseball game. Probably the World Series, but maybe just a regular game, I don't remember (And I don't know how Reggie's mind gets taken over, either. Was it a microchip? I don't think it matters much).

The point is that the truly hilarious “Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad” has its entire madcap ending at a California Angels game and it includes Nielsen's Frank Drebin impersonating an umpire to hilarious effect. The final sight gag, that of O.J. Simpson's Nordberg catapulted from his wheelchair off the stadium's upper deck is among the funniest visuals in all of cinema.

"The Town"

Ken Burns may want to paint baseball as pastoral and idyllic, but Ben Affleck (who, for the purposes of this analogy, is meant to seem as dark and gritty) knows that it's all about the money. No bucks, no balks! No dollars, no dugouts! No green, no grand slams! No scratch, no strikeouts! No samoleans, no squeeze plays! No . . . really, I could continue this all day, so let's just meet at the next paragraph.

“The Town”'s band of Boston bank robbers descend upon the Red Sox's Fenway Park for their big, bullet-ridden score, and, to this non-baseball fan, it's the most exciting thing that's ever happened in that hallowed hall.

"Brewster McCloud"

Robert Altman made some great movies and he made some weird movies. Most of his weird ones are the type you walk away from saying, “huh. . .interesting. . .where do you want to eat?”

But not “Brewster McCloud.” This oddball, aviary counter-culture comedy is about, among other things, a dropout kid who lives in the then very new (and symbolic of The Man) Houston Astrodome. It may be impressive, but it's still a cage, man, and there's no way the human spirit can truly soar within such a construct.

In addition to a great behind-the-bleachers look at one of the world's most famous baseball stadiums, “Brewster McCloud” features Rene Auberjonois presenting a Greek Chorus-like lecture while slowly transforming into a bird. 1970!

"Brewster's Millions"

While we're on the topic of Brewsters, let's move it forward a few years to “Brewster's Millions.”

An elevator pitch so perfect they've made the movie six times (with a seventh in development!) Richard Pryor has to spend $30 million in 30 days to get $300 million. One of the ways he does it is by renting the NY Yankees and having them play an exhibition game against his minor league Hackensack Bulls.

The scene is memorable for John Candy's outstanding trash-talking, as well as for Jerry Orbach (the manager) taking Pryor out when his pitching gets soft. I never quite understood Orbach's motivation (it's not a real game, and Pryor paid for it!) but Pryor had the ability to sharp-shoot sadness with a quick hangdog look that actually makes the moment rather poignant.

"Max Dugan Returns"

The embedded TV trailer above is, I admit, horrible. But that's just the 1980s packaging, I swear.

“Max Dugan Returns,” a lesser-known entry in Neil Simon's canon, is a very funny movie about family reconciliation. In it, the young Matthew Broderick and his mother (Marsha Mason) are visited by Jason Robards – the long lost, and now loaded, father/grandfather. Among the riches Robards' brings is a new hitting coach for young Broderick – actual baseball star Charley Lau. Robards is a weird grampa, though, and hopes Broderick will also pursue the noble field of philosophy. Hence, when he hits the game winning home run, he shouts out one of the strangest lines ever uttered on a baseball diamond: “That was for you, Wittgenstein!”

"Eight Men Out" and "Moneyball"

I dunno, maybe these two don't count. I mean, they're baseball movies! But I include them not just because they don't put baseball up on some golden pedestal. They use baseball as a means to discuss power, both corrupt (the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal of “Eight Men Out”) and neutral (the dispassionate, data-driven management technique of “Moneyball”.) The scenes of playing baseball are among the least interesting in these quite good films, and I think even a season ticket holder would agree with me there.

"Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch"

Wait, hold it now. This can't count. This is just a straight-up baseball movie!

Damn right it is. And I'm putting it on here it because I'M NOT A MONSTER!

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