Top 50 Baseball Movies: #35-31
A gorilla, a damaged soul, a tap-dancer, a barnstormer, and a science professor
In the run-up to the publication of my book Baseball: The Movie, we’re counting down the top 50 baseball movies ever made.
35. Mr. Go (2013)
There’s nothing in the rulebook that says a gorilla can’t play baseball. In America, we (unfortunately) have Ed, in which Matt Le Blanc must contend with the indignity of playing with a chimpanzee. South Korea has Mr. Go, which features a (digital) power-hitting gorilla, who journeys from the circus to the KBO league and leads the real-life Doosan Bears to a pennant. You might have already guessed it’s a fairly broad film, replete with innocent orphans, greedy agents, and evil loan sharks, but so what? It’s got a gorilla who plays baseball in it, and it absolutely nails the climactic game, which culminates in a nod to the great moment in The Natural when Roy Hobbs literally tears the cover off the ball. It should come as no surprise that Mr. Go finds a way to make that moment even more implausible.
34. Fear Strikes Out (1957)
Ron Shelton, the former minor leaguer who wrote and directed Bull Durham, called Fear Strikes Out the “low point in sports movies.” He was referring mostly to the lack of realism in its baseball. Anthony Perkins, who plays real-life major leaguer Jim Piersall, appears to have never caught or thrown a ball before in his life. It’s distracting for sure, but it’s not a deal-breaker for me because Piersall is supposed to be a little odd. He’s talented, but he also spends the film’s first half on the verge of a nervous breakdown brought on by his overbearing father (Karl Malden). It’s a fascinating film that subverts our wholesome image of the baseball hero and finds a festering psychic wound underneath. The baseball is bad, but the film is good.
33. Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949)
In the early days of professional baseball, the players didn’t make enough money to just relax during the offseason. They worked. Some of the bigger stars worked the vaudeville circuit. Some, if Take Me Out to the Ballgame is to be believed, like vaudeville better than baseball. That’s the premise of the film, which stars Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, as big-leaguers torn between sport and showbiz. It takes place during a major league season in which the two stars are distracted by their new woman owner (Esther Williams). They express themselves through song and dance, which makes Take Me Out to the Ballgame the first baseball musical, beating Damn Yankees to the screen by 6 years. It’s a natural fit, really, as the sport is full of beautiful choreography.
32. Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976)
I could write a book about Bingo Long. Instead, we’ll have to settle for a chapter about it in Baseball: The Movie. It’s such a complicated film, better in its ideas than its execution. It’s the story of a group of Negro League players who, after being mistreated by their owner, strike out on their own and form a barnstorming team that’s more like a socialist collective. This is definitely the only baseball film in which W.E.B. Dubois gets name-checked. It’s the first film to focus on the Negro Leagues, showing both the proud Black culture that sprung up around them and the way their owners exploited their players by refusing to guarantee contracts. It was also written and directed by White men who more than once take their eyes off the ball. See it, and then talk about it. Or just read my book. There’s a lot to unpack.
31. It Happens Every Spring (1949)
“Baseball fever” describes the phenomenon in which otherwise rational men and women abdicate their responsibilities every April to immerse themselves in a baseball season. I’ve got a mild case of it, and maybe, reader, so do you. So does Professor Vernon K. Simpson (Ray Milland, who also starred in Rhubarb), who they say would have made tenure years ago, if not for his six months of low production every year that tracks with the baseball season. It pays off for Simpson when he invents a substance that repels wood. He smears it on a baseball and—voila!—he’s the greatest bat-misser you’ve ever seen pitch. Simpson makes it to the majors in a heartbeat, where he lives out the fantasy of everyone sick with baseball fever. It’s a silly movie whose story beats are fairly predictable, but that’s not often a disqualifier for a baseball movie, is it? It Happens Every Spring is a hoot.