Original Trailers for Baseball Movies

The entire country is buried under a blanket of disheartening snow, but there is hope. Baseball is right around the corner. Pitchers and catchers are slowly making their way to Florida and Arizona for spring training. To help ward off the chill, here are the original trailers of some classic (and some not-so-classic) baseball movies.

Baseball Movie Tropes

Every film genre has a series of tropes, or clichés. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the films. It just means that they like to employ some relatively predictable devices from time to time. Baseball movies are no exception. When you’ve seen as many baseball movies as I have, it’s impossible not to notice the clichés piling up. Here are nine. Because the number nine is pretty sacred when it comes to the game of baseball:

The coarse, grouchy, elderly manager
Seemingly every baseball team in Hollywood is helmed by multiple variations of the same guy. He’s almost (but not) always old. He swears a lot. He’s always grouchy about everything. In the parlance of people in the game, the manager “has the red ass”. He’s pissed off and you’re always going to know it.
Examples: Morris Buttermaker (The Bad News Bears); “Skip” Joe Riggins (Bull Durham); Lou Brown (Major League); Pop Fisher (The Natural); George O’Farrell (Little Big League); Jimmy Dugan (A League of Their Own)

Re-Watchterpiece Theater: 61*

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Re-Watchterpiece Theater is a series that explores the organic way that attitudes about films change after you watch them a second time, a third time, or more, further down the line than the original viewing. This week, I’ll be discussing Billy Crystal’s made-for-HBO baseball film, 61* (2001). For those of you unfamiliar with the film, here’s the film’s synopsis, via Fandango:

Noted baseball fan Billy Crystal directed this made-for-cable drama set in the summer of 1961, as two of the strongest hitters in the major leagues, Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper), find themselves neck and neck in a battle to break Babe Ruth’s long-standing record for most home runs in a season. Both men were playing for the New York Yankees at the time, and as the two men came within grasping distance of Ruth’s record, their loyalty as friends and teammates was put to the ultimate test.

100 More Things I Love About the Movies

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When I passed the 100,000 hit marker in November, I honored the event with what became one of my most popular entries- 100 Things I Love About the Movies. As it turns out, my odometer recently rolled over another milestone- the 200,000 hit marker. As logic follows, I’m due for another stroll down 100 Things Avenue. So without further ado, here are 100 More Things I Love About the Movies: