Top Five (and Three-quarters) Baseball Films

Does anyone remember "Wheel of Fortune" in the old days - say the early 1990s? A contestant would got to the final round, in which he or she had to solve a short puzzle in thirty seconds to guess the final word or phrase. To assist in the codebreaking, the player was allowed to choose five consonants and one vowel which would be revealed on the board.

Well, somewhere along the way in the last decade, the show's producers oddly felt that going through the ritual of choosing "L, N, R, S and T" as everyone did was unnecessary and made it a point to merely give the would-be word sleuth these five letters while still allowing him or her to guess the vowel, which is ultimately always "E."

The situation is akin to polling movie fans, sports fans and sports movie fans about the top five baseball movies ever made. The first four are named without hesitation, enumerated as some combination of Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, The Natural, and Gary Cooper's Lou Gehrig biopic tearjerker Pride of Yankees. Position five is probably occupied by Eight Men Out or, if in a lighter mood, either the not-for-kids Little League flick The Bad News Bears or screwball comedy Major League. And soon, Red Sox and Mets fans will doubt add the new Michael Keaton film Game 6 to their lists.

This is all fine and good. All of the above-mentioned (well, except one) are quality films populated with the likable, zany and/or dramatic characters every American loves in a baseball movie. All have edge-of-your-seat plotline, all shoot the red, white and blue game in loving fashion. It would therefore be pointless to pump up or tear down any of these venerated classics - even The Natural, in which every time Roy Hobbs steps to the plate he strikes out or homers (oops) - and so this critic would like to offer an alternative Top Five (and Three-Quarters) Baseball Movies, a series of reels perhaps passed by the first time 'round. In homage to "Wheel," the list will be presented in alphabetical order.

Bang the Drum Slowly - Mysteriously, this one has slowly slid under film buffs' radar since its acclaimed release in 1973. Every so often, it can be seen on late-night cable but as years pass this movie gets dustier and dustier. Why? Who knows? Roger Ebert calls this "the ultimate baseball movie," but what Bang the DrumSlowly ultimately represents is the 1970s answer to Pride of the Yankees. Robert DeNiro is a dim-witted catcher with a terminal illness playing for a fictional New York major league team. Michael Moriarty is the big-city pitcher who befriends the sick young 'un. All unfolds pretty much as expected, although there are no overdramatic, homer-in-the-bottom-of-the-ninth moments here, and the actual gameplay is realistic. Vincent Gardenia received an Oscar nomination for his crusty self-proclaimed "leader of the world's SOBs" manager, and DeNiro's performance is…hey, come on, he's DeNiro.

The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings - Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones (guess who's the beefy home-run hitter in this one) lead the cast in this fun fun film. It's sort of the Negro League version of Eight Men Out in terms of baseball's class structure: Tired of constant exploitation on the parts of team owners, brainy pitcher Bingo Long (Williams) decides to gather a Dream Team and take the boys barnstorming around the 1930s Midwest. Engaging, fantastic film about a side of the game few but historians know much about.

The Fan - All right, the second half of this eerie, quirky creepy film departs almost entirely from the baseball milieu altogether, but The Fan remains fascinating like a car wreck throughout. Viewers can't help rubbernecking through this nearly two-hour long examination of celebrity obsession. DeNiro plays the titular character, rechanneling his Cape Fear energies to create a landlubbing Max Cady; rather than torment lawyer Nick Nolte, DeNiro as Cady instead torments superstar baseballer Wesley Snipes with his stalking. Enjoy, darkly; just write off the exceedingly improbable denouement to poetic license.

Fear Strikes Out - Usually relegated to infrequent showings on Turner Classic Movies, Fear Strikes Out is the true story of major league outfielder Jimmy Piersall. Piersall was one of those unfortunate lads forced to live a life shaped and molded by his overbearing father. In Piersall's case such treatment in his youth resulted in pretty serious psychological problems. Piersall is played by Anthony Perkins, who should play every character with some pretty serious psychological problems; Karl Malden is the pushy patriarch. A notably dark film, particularly when considering its 1957 release date.

A League of their Own - Hey, it's no less corny than Field of Dreams. A League of their Own is a light-hearted movie by light-hearted movie director Penny Marshall about the trials and tribulations of the little-known All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and 50s. League, like Bingo Long's All-Stars, offers a nice - if over-idealized and -sentimental - look at an aspect of the game that few are aware of: There really was a professional women's baseball league…who knew? There are a few interesting stories and subplots here against the inevitable sports film clichés and cardboard characters, and Jon Lovitz' cameo role as the cynical scout is almost worth the price of admission alone. And are there two more gosh-darn likeable actors in Hollywood than Tom Hanks and Geena Davis?

A handful of other works deserves mention for beefing up the baseball flick subgenre, but can in no way truly be christened "baseball movies." No fan of the game should miss this three for their small moments of baseball glory:

The Naked Gun - The slapstick movie franchise began here, the movie with a denouement at the ballpark. The Jackson-as-assassin bit is superseded in wackiness only by Leslie Nielsen's unforgettable antics as umpire when his intrepid Lt. Drebin has to go way undercover.

Radio Days - Woody Allen's paean to 1940s radio entertainment runs eighty-five minutes with but one minute of baseball, but boy what a minute. Check out the side-splitting story of Kirby Kyle, a major leaguer with a penchant for shotgun accidents but "he had heart." Rent this one for your Woody-loving wife or nostalgic grandfather and wait for Kyle's bit. It's worth it.

Who's on First - An obligatory mention to one of the most famous English-language comedy bits ever, baseball-related or no. Has anyone noticed that this still-hilarious skit, featuring Lou Costello's slow rise to burning fury, isn't about baseball at all? And if you can name every player on the fictional Yankees team with firstbaseman Who, you are officially a baseball trivia Grandmaster.