What's Your Favorite Lesser-Known, Non-Blockbuster Baseball Movie?
 

My favorite 3 in the lesser-known category are:

Talent for the Game - staring Edward James Olmos & Lorraine Bracco
Pastime - starring William Russ & Glenn Plummer

and not yet available on DVD- Cooperstown- starring Alan Arkin & Graham Greene.


My favorite 'well-known' Baseball Movies are:

61*
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
Bull Durham
Eight Men Out
Field of Dreams
Mr. Baseball
The Natural
42

"It Happens Every Spring," 1949, Ray Milland

Check it out, very much worth watching....

Yes, Yes- and 'The Winning Team'

One more older movie that I cannot believe I failed to mention:

A Great, Great Movie:

'The Spirit of St. Louis'

Just watched the documentary Battered Bastards of Baseball on Netflix. Stop what you are doing and watch it now.

They made two great documentaries about summer collegiate baseball. One about the Cap Cod and the other about Alaska. http://touchingthegame.com/

Talent for the Game . . .
 

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. . . staring Edward Olmos and Loraine Bracco has always been an enjoyable watch for me. Certainly not an original storyline, and abit far fetched at times, but I do enjoy how the husband/wife team of Olmos an Bracco worked together.

I got a kick out of "Alibi Ike" with Joe E. Brown. Loved that wind-up!

I'm a sucker for '80's movies so "Long Gone" is one of my favorites. A more recent favorite would be "Sugar".

Rookie Of The Year - my friend's uncle is the doctor who yells "Funky butt loving!"

Fear Strikes Out.

Yeah. I would be bragging about that too. :D

I have Cooperstown starring Alan Arkin and Graham Greene on VHS. Enjoy the story and Arkin and Greene are great but would have liked it better if they had actually filmed in Cooperstown.

One of my favorite lesser known baseball related movies has to be The Sandlot

SAFE AT HOME -- 1962 -- with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, for the few unfamiliar with this one

I haven't heard of most of these. Will have to check some out. My favorite lesser known that hasn't been mentioned:
Don't Look Back: The Satchel Paige Story

Mine would be Chasing 3,000.

Not sure there are any "lesser-known" movies that I'm a fan of. Having a hard time thinking of any. As for the well-known ones, my favorites:

- For Love of the Game
- Bull Durham
- Major League
- Eight Men Out
- Field of Dreams

Lesser-known...

Fear Strikes Out (Jimmy Piersall's story)
Bang the Drum Slowly (tear-jerker with a very young De Niro)

One of my favorites is the original Angels in the Outfield with Janet Leigh and Paul Douglas. If you look closely you'll see Barbara Billingsley (Beaver Cleaver's mother) in a bit part.

not a baseball movie
 

but anyone remember the movie Black Sunday, I don't think I've seen it in 30/40 years.....but remember it was filmed during one of the best Super Bowls of all time Cowboys vs Steelers.........seem to recall a Jean Claude Van Damn movie or was it Bruce Willis filmed during a Penguins game.

Baseball Movie Prop
 

Home Run

We are watching it right now on Netflix. Low budget film but it has kept our attention for the 1st hour. Sort of reminds me of Facing the Giants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Run_(film)

I watched "The Sandlot" (Again!) with my 3 boys(8, 11, 12 years old), It is so funny to watch with my young men! The part with the Red headed Catcher & the other teams batter is "Gut Busting" funny through a little man's mind...

Pelotero and Sugar. Baseball from a different perspective

"The Perfect Game", was a very good watch for me!
It's about the little Mexican town with nothing that Wins the Little League WS.
I believe it was in 1958 or 59... Simply Awesome!

Long Gone

Sudden Death.

Van Damme ends up playing goalie for the Penguins to thwart a bomb plot. Yeah, pretty bad one as J-C movies go, and that's saying a lot...

The correct answer.

Lesser known the sand lot

Favorite bull Durham

Little known...
 

...there's a baseball-themed movie, Touching Home, that came out in 2008... twins, Logan & Noah Miller, wrote, directed and acted in it. They're from the Bay Area and they got Ed Harris (yes. THE Ed Harris) to star in it. (full disclosure: I did the movie poster for the film)... It's about two sons dream of realizing their baseball dreams (they get a tryout for a big league club) while dealing with an alcoholic father. Based on their true story. It's a small film, but beautifully shot... and the twins have obviously played the game. Worth checking out.

IMDB LINK HERE

Olivia de Havilland............
 

1935.......and 18 year old Olivia de Havilland's film debut. BTW.....she's still alive and living in Paris (98 yrs. old). The last surviving star from "Gone With The WInd" (1939).

Great movie! It's supposedly a true story.

I also agree that Fear Strikes Out and Bang The Drum Slowly are underrated gems!

Soul Of The Game with Blair Underwood as Jackie Robinson, Mykelti Williamson as Josh Gibson, and Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige.

One of the cool details about Long Gone was the Teller of Penn & Teller had as sizable talking part.

Brewster's Millions
The Slugger' Wife

Wait, come to think of it, these were both very bad movies. But that didn't stop me from watching hundreds of times as a kid just for the baseball scenes.

Ball of Wax.

It's like as if Major League was written and directed by Stephen King in a bad mood.

The Sandlot

Soul of the Game
For love of the Game (kind of a chick flick BB movie)

I'll throw another vote out there for Long Gone... Personally I have always considered The Sandlot a pretty well known movie.

How about a movie that has a baseball scene as about the last 1/3 of the movie?

THE NAKED GUN, the last third of the movie is the funniest baseball stuff ever on screen as it takes place during an Angels game and Frank Drebin takes over first as an opera singer then as the home plate umpire, and Reggie tries to kill the queen, and the umpires get a runner in a rundown, and so on. Totally fantastic!!!! :D

The Stratton Story
 

True life story of Monte Stratton who was a promising pitcher for the White Sox (1934-1938). Excellently portrayed by Jimmy Stewart.
Cast includes actual ballplayers....Bill Dickey, Jimmy Dykes, Luke Appling, etc.

Check it out...it's a really great movie.


http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/t...attonStory.jpg



TED Z
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A League of Their Own. Filmed in and around Evansville, Indiana where I was brought up. I wanted to get in that movie as an extra in the stands, but couldn't get off work. I understand the cast had some great parties at some of our local drinking holes. Tom Hanks and his family lived just down the road from me during filming and said his kids loved it as did Geena Davis and most of the others. Of course Madonna called it a hick town and couldn't wait to escape.

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How about a vote for Stealing Home with Jodie Foster and Mark Harmon from 1988. Not sure if others like it but I did.

I also like the original Angels In The Outfield from the 1950's.

As a kid that was a favorite.

Another vote for Pastime.

Highly recommended
 

+1

I saw this one for the first time in the mid-1960s and enjoyed it very much.

Trouble With the Curve has not been mentioned. Put a tear in my eye, no joke.

I'll second Sugar for fiction and add Knuckleball! for a doc.