Best baseball movies

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Best baseball movies

With another baseball season upon us, it's a great time to look back at some of the all-time best baseball movies.

With another baseball season upon us, it's a great time to look back at some of the all-time best baseball movies.

When a boy prays for a chance to have a family if the California Angels win the pennant, angels are assigned to make that possible. Image courtesy: Walt Disney Pictures

When an accident miraculously gives a boy an incredibly powerful pitching arm, he becomes a major league pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Image courtesy: 20th Century Fox

Baseball America says: You'll find just as many people who hate this movie as love it, but just about everyone who has seen it remembers it, which puts it ahead of most movies. While the story is cliché, the gags predictable and the characters two-dimensional, the movie is fun and the actors look like they can play. Image courtesy: Paramount Pictures

Baseball America says: It's probably the least known of any of the movies on our list, but It's by far the most charming of all the baseball movies featuring kids that followed "The Bad News Bears." A cast of unknowns, except for James Earl Jones, creates a fond remembrance of what it was like to play neighborhood ball together. Image courtesy: 20th Century Fox

A Texas baseball coach makes the major league after agreeing to try out if his high school team made the playoffs. Starring Dennis Quaid, J.D. Evermore and Rachel Griffiths.

Baseball America says: The movie is more about women fighting for their rights than the game on the field, but the women are credible as baseball players, except maybe Lori Petty. The movie also brought attention to a forgotten piece of baseball history, and it gets extra credit for adding the line "There's no crying in baseball" to the vernacular. Image courtesy: Columbia Pictures

Nominated for an Acadamey Award, the story follow's Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players. Image courtesy: Sony Pictures/ Columbia Pictures

Baseball America says: This is the baseball version of "Brian's Song," only better. It started a period of great modern baseball movies and is still regarded by many as the best of the bunch. The movie helped launch the careers of Michael Moriarty as the star pitcher and Robert DeNiro as the dying catcher. Some prefer the Mark Harris novel (he also wrote the screenplay) or criticize the details of the baseball in the movie, but that is quibbling. It's a truly touching film.

Baseball America says: The best pure baseball comedy, this movie reminded everyone what Little League was really like. Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal were perfect in their roles, and all of the foul-mouthed kids fit together beautifully. Don't hold it against this movie that it spawned many more unfunny movies that tried to be like it, including "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" and "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan," which somehow starred Tony Curtis. Image courtesy: Paramount Pictures

Baseball America says: This classic is about baseball the way "Steel Magnolias" was about hairdressers. Much is made about Gary Cooper (as Gehrig) not really being lefthanded, but in this movie it hardly matters. Viewed today, It's a hopelessly sentimental movie, but it was made in a different age and is the best of the baseball melodramas. And at the end, when Cooper gives the "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech, You'll shed a tear in spite of yourself. Bonus points for appearances by actual Yankees, including Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey.

Baseball America says: Another movie that tends to divide peoples opinions, It's a sentimental view of a slugger and the game. It's based on a novel by Bernard Malamud and features a strong cast led by Robert Redford. Baseball romantics love it and see it as a fable, while more jaded fans say It's overrated and simplistic. Either way, It's a lovely and influential movie. Image courtesy: TriStar Pictures

Baseball America says: A thoroughly modern look back at a simpler time, this movie does not romanticize baseball's history and captures the time of the Black Sox scandal in an authentic way. John Sayles wrote and directed the movie, based on a book by Eliot Asinof, and does a great job of bringing the complexity of the story to the screen. A great cast helps as well. About the only thing the movie lacks is emotional intensity. Image courtesy: Orion Pictures

Baseball America says: Only the truly cynical aren't taken by this movie, which captures better than any other the mystical hold that baseball can have over people. Kevin Costner and the rest of the cast are great in this adaptation of W.P. Kinsella's novel "Shoeless Joe." It seems that everyone latches on to something different as their favorite part or as the message of the film. Like baseball itself, It's a simple movie that also proves beautifully complex. Image courtesy: Universal

Baseball America says: And It's not even that close. First, "Bull Durham" is far and away the most authentic portrayal of the game, both on and off the field. Baseball is treated with casual reverence: It's a great game, and we love it, but it is a game. Costner is at his best, and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are perfect complements. The romance between Costner and Sarandon is also just right. It's all thanks to writer and director Ron Shelton, who spent five years in the minor leagues and cared about doing things right. He avoids the usual sports movie clichés - he filmed Costner catching a foul pop just because he said movies never show the routine plays and creates characters that we like and a world that we Don't want to leave. Image courtesy: Orion Pictures

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With another baseball season upon us, it's a great time to look back at some of the all-time best baseball movies.

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