"Knock the Cover Off The Ball": Cinematic Baseball

The new baseball season is about a month young and with its advent comes my current reflection on the history (my personal one) of baseball in the movies.  I haven't seen every baseball film. 
The Lou Gehrig Story starring Gary Cooper is one I haven't seen, but I've seen quite a few.  Some are amazing, some better than others and some hit below average.

Barry Levinson's The Natural is one of my personal favorite movies taking baseball as its main subject.  Its mythic quality, the way it brilliantly divides the line between good and evil, using grand imagery and allegorical motifs to express the soul of the game in a transcendent way that few films, sports-themed or otherwise, have been able to parallel, makes it totally rewarding.   The story of Roy Hobbes' rise, fall, and then rise again, speaks to anyone, anywhere who has ever desired to be given a second chance or lifeline.  The music soundtrack, composed by Randy Newman, is one of the most moving, majestic, and appropriate scores to ever accompany a motion picture.   The motif of light vs. darkness is present throughout the entire film and provides a clear guidepost to its viewing.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, 1989's baseball comedy, Major League marked a formative experience in my early life when I saw it in a theater.   It is in the choreography of the baseball action, its on-field realism, that makes it extremely engaging.  Director David S. Ward did a masterful job of composing the action in the games in this film.  Another highlight is the screenplay: many memorable and hilarious lines and characters I can recall from this film.  When Willy Mays Hayes arrives to Spring training and promises that he "plans to put on a hitting display", you know you are in for something entertaining.

Another cinematic baseball gem that was released the same year is Phil Alden Robinson's Field of Dreams.  A farmer played by Kevin Costner starts to hear voices in his cornfield, compelling him to build a baseball field:  "If you build it, he will come."  Just who "he" is is a mystery: Shoeless Joe? God? His dad? The film and its makers had an obvious, mystical awe and love of the game of baseball and it shows in the meticulous rendering of the glory of the sport and the sport's legendary players from history.

Baseball and the movies have had a long relationship.  The rise in popularity of baseball in the early 20th century coincided with the dawn and development of the art of movies.  There is something about the sport of baseball that makes it particularly attuned to being portrayed on the silver screen:  its tempo, its grandiosity, its magic, and its history.  Great films have been made about baseball and you can bet that there will be more in the future.