Five baseball movies to watch during quarentine
By Max Rayman
What baseball movies should you be watching while you’re staying inside during the pandemic?
With the Coronavirus keeping people inside, many of us are bored. While some people are working at home, the majority have to keep themselves busy. Videogames can only entertain people for so long. The baseball season is still delayed with no start time in view, so now is the best time to catch up on or re-watch some baseball movies to get your fix. Here is a list of five baseball movies to watch during the quarantine.
42 (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes)
When the trailer dropped for this movie in 2013, I was beyond ecstatic. A Jackie Robinson movie with Harrison Ford portraying Branch Rickey. Chadwick Boseman made a name for himself in this movie as Robinson and showed the raw emotions of what number 42 went through. While they were some creative licensing (that’s Hollywood for you), the movie shows how Branch Rickey decided to call up Robinson, and how the Dodgers responded to the decision.
Bull Durham (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes)
The quintessential movie for baseball fans. Kevin Costner is superb as Crash Davis, a veteran catcher in the minor leagues, who has 21 days of experience in the majors. He is entrusted to groom top pitching prospect “Nuke Laloosh” and get him ready for the majors. The film is full of memorable one-liners that were set up during Susan Sarandon’s opening monologue, such as “Who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God’s sake”. What a one-sided trade that was.
The Sandlot (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes)
This was my favorite baseball movie growing up as it was just full of entertainment. From the amazing insults (“You play ball like a girl”) to Benny the Jet stealing home, this movie never got old. And who can forget Squints scheming on Wendy Peffercorn?
A group of neighborhood kids, take the new kid Smalls under their wings and make him the ninth man on their sandlot team. Smalls shifts from a shy kid who can’t play baseball to save his life, to one of the group. This movie gives anyone who has trouble fitting or is scared of moving to a new town, hope.
It Happens Every Spring (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes)
This movie has sentimental value as I attempt to watch it with my dad every year right before the start of the baseball season. Many might not be acquainted with this film, as it is the oldest on the list. It came out in 1949 and is in black and white.
It details how a chance discovery gives an ordinary man the chance of a lifetime, something everyone dreams of. A college professor is working on a science experiment when a baseball comes crashing through his window destroying everything he had worked on. He then realized that the liquids he had been using mixed together to form a brand new unknown substance. The professor realized his new substance is repelled by wood and tests it out on the baseball. He then goes to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals as a pitcher and the rest of the film details his career in the big leagues.
Field of Dreams (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes)
Kevin Costner’s second movie on this list sees him play a farmer who risks putting his family into debt in order to build a baseball field because a voice told him to do. Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the Blacksox end up coming to the field to play ball.
The film also shows the complex relation Costner’s character had with his dad, which many people can probably relate to. It showcases the regret we go through in our daily lives and how we respond to it.