The Best Baseball Movies Ever Made

'Tis the season!

Geena Davis as power hitter Dottie Hinson in the original A League of Their Own.

When you think about baseball, Americana often comes to mind: A ballpark in summer. The smells of grass, beer, hot dogs and Banana Boat. The Fourth of July and the National Anthem. If you’re a Cubs fan: Harry Caray crooning “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. If you root for the Red Sox: The “Sweet Caroline” singalong. If you root for no team but find yourself in the bleachers anyway, basking in nostalgia and fake-cheese nachos, the memories so thick — to paraphrase James Earl Jones in his stirring Field of Dreams monologue — that you have to brush them away from your face. Is there a better way to spend a cloudless Sunday afternoon? I think not!

While we tend to think of the sport as a quintessentially American pastime, it has its origins across the pond, in an old English game called rounders. It was played by men and women, boys and girls, and was also called baseball. Jane Austen referenced the game in the opening pages of her coming-of-age novel, Northanger Abbey (1818), which stars a spirited teenager named Catherine Morland. Introducing her protagonist, Austen wrote: “It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books."

Baseball, a British export, exploded in popularity during the mid-1800s, spreading throughout the States like the recent pickleball craze, to rural sandlots and city streets and everywhere in between. You didn’t have to be wealthy to play it. All you needed was a bat, a ball and a glove. At its most purely democratic, baseball transcended the confines of gender, race and class, attracting a diversity of talents who played recreationally and professionally. Far too many were barred from the big show: That would be Major League Baseball, founded in 1876, a professional (and yes, patriarchal) institution that transformed the diamond into a church and its athletes into gods (who were white, male and heterosexual). After World War II, Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color barrier, and becoming the most inspirational big-leaguer ever to step up to the plate. Pro ball, for all its glorification of the past, has also been a harbinger of change to come. Last year, Kelsie Whitmore, a pitcher and outfielder for the Staten Island FerryHawks with a ferocious tattoo of crocodile teeth on her arm, became the first woman to play in a league partnered with MLB since 1994. The 24-year-old has got guts. She is crossing rigid gender lines in a highly charged cultural climate with a lot of old-fashioned opinions on who belongs where, and in which box. The curiosity surrounding Whitmore has led to many media interviews and raised her national profile, which is a very good thing, but not the most important thing — for her, that’s playing baseball. That is her calling.

What does any of this have to do with … the movies?! Well, everything. Hollywood lives for an underdog story, and in fine examples of art fictionalizing life, it has served stories that illuminate and inspire and redefine what is possible. On that front, the Cinema of Baseball more than delivers the goods: The triumphant heroes, the villains who get their comeuppance, the thrilling action sequences, the home runs, the bad calls and the big swings. The best baseball movies revel in the sport’s mythology while turning the lore on its head. Here are my picks:

• The Natural (1984): Robert Redford plays middle-aged rookie Roy Hobbs in this much-loved morality tale based on Bernard Malamud’s novel of the same name. As a youth, Roy was told by his father that he had a gift, and he must continue to develop it. “If you rely too much on your gift, you’ll fail,” Mr. Hobbs said. (Any seasoned athlete would agree with that statement, but often in popular culture, talent is regarded as something you’re born with rather than the reality: That it can be honed through learning.) Anyway! When lightning strikes a tree, Young Roy takes some wood and carves a bat that he christens “Wonderboy.” While traveling to Major League tryouts, he meets a dangerous femme fatale (Barbara Hershey), who snuffs out his career before it had the chance to begin. Years later, Roy and Wonderboy emerge from total obscurity for one last shot at the big time, and Roy fulfills his potential, making enemies along the way. Specifically: Gamblers who try and bribe him into losing on purpose. He refuses their offer because, like Frank Navasky, he is impervious to corruption! Roy is very, very serious about maintaining baseball’s purity, and the film’s dramatic tropes (Don’t Trust Brunettes) feel eye roll-obvious at times. But it is riveting from start to finish, with director Barry Levinson bathing Redford in golden-hour light. If The Natural were playing in theaters today, Nicole Kidman might say, We come to this place for magic.

• Bull Durham (1988): Otherwise known as A Little-League Dad’s Favorite Movie. Kevin Costner is Crash Davis (WHAT A NAME), a wry, world-weary, aging catcher in the minors who never made it in the majors. He’s been-there, done-that, seen-it-all, and when he’s summoned to the Durham Bulls to train pitcher Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) for the big leagues, a salty Crash puts on airs, spouting high-falutin dialogue as if he were the beat poet laureate of the single-A. “I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter,” he declares. “I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.” Crash: NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS. (Exceptions: The teens from Dawson’s Creek.) Nonetheless, writer-director Ron Shelton crafted a genre classic that bursts with contagious love for baseball and still manages to make the heart swell. Take the moment that Crash — without fanfare or media attention — quietly smashes his 247th homer, setting a minor-league record. A good baseball film isn’t really about baseball. Instead, Bull Durham is about second chances and the joy of letting go. Honorable mention to Susan Sarandon for a scene-stealing performance bordering on camp!

• Field of Dreams (1989): I love this movie with every fiber of my being. It stars Costner — him again — but this time, he’s Ray Kinsella, a sweet Iowa farmer with an extremely cool wife (Amy Madigan) and daughter (Gaby Hoffmann). One day, out in his acres of idyllic cornfields, Ray hears an eerie voice whispering, If you build it, he will come. He gets a vision of a baseball field and builds a real one atop the crops, leaving neighbors scratching their heads. They can’t see what he can: The ghosts of vintage ballplayers like Shoeless Joe Jackson (a dazzling Ray Liotta) who walk out of the corn and start to play casual games. The supernatural directives continue. Go the distance. Ease his pain. (Ease who’s pain?) More determined than ever, Ray embarks on a road trip to enlist allies — the marvelously cantankerous writer Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) and the devoted doctor Moonlight Graham (Burt Lancaster) — in his quest to solve the mystery behind The Voice. Suspense builds as Ray’s annoying but practical brother-in-law (Timothy Busfield) warns that the farm is on the brink of foreclosure, all because Ray is completely nuts! As the clock ticks and the sun dips below the horizon, there is hope: a long line of cars suddenly steers toward the DIY diamond, for reasons the drivers can’t fully explain. The mystery then unwraps itself, like a gift, and a new ghost appears. He and his son have a long-overdue catch. Spoiler below:

• A League of Their Own (1992): I love this movie so much, I wrote a book about it! My latest Hollywood history, No Crying in Baseball, the inside story of the making of the most successful female-led sports movie of all time, arrives September 5, and is available for pre-order wherever books are sold. In 1991, filmmaker Penny Marshall persuaded coastal crews and Madonna, then the biggest pop star in the world, to join her in the Midwest to make a movie about fictional ballplayers who happened to be women. They play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which actually existed during the 1940s and ’50s. Few had heard of the league until Marshall released her beloved blockbuster in theaters, enthralling youngsters who looked at the Rockford Peaches and saw themselves projected onscreen. While Marshall’s A League of Their Own erased the hidden queer history of the real-life Dotties, Kits, Dorises and “All the Way” Maes, it was deeply subversive for its time — the rare team sports film that broke convention to center girls with sass and skill, proto-Kelsie Whitmores who dared to play a man’s game and do it better than the boys. Recall the scene where Geena Davis catches Rosie O’Donnell’s hostile pitch with her bare hand. The only response remains: HELL YES. Rosie didn’t nickname her co-star “Geena the Macheena” for nothing.

• Fever Pitch (2005): I know what you’re thinking. A romantic comedy starring JIMMY FALLON. As Drew Barrymore’s leading man? On a list of the Best Baseball Movies Ever Made? Hear me out. Despite Fallon’s wild-card casting, Fever Pitch brings together an A-team of heavy-hitters: Barrymore, a rom-com queen, and the Farrelly Brothers behind the lens, not to mention A League of Their Own scribes Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel writing the script. The couple meeting-cute: Lindsey, a Career Woman prone to wearing structured blazers, chunky necklaces and statement scarves; and Ben, a humble teacher and rabid Boston Red Sox superfan, who looks like he just rolled out of bed. All told, they share a natural chemistry and goofy sense of humor. Lindsey supports Ben’s intense fandom at first, cutting out early to sit with him at Fenway, but eventually the beige flags start to turn red. Ben celebrates while she gets knocked unconscious by a foul ball, and in a fit of anger, he blames her for making him miss an important game. Clearly, he is more committed to his team than to her! Don’t write him off, though. He somehow manages to find a selfless way to win her back, and the grand finale is a winner. Like, I cried laughing. I wanted these crazy kids to make it work. This is a low-key charmer for baseball fanatics and the saints who put up with them.

• 42 (2013): The acclaimed Jackie Robinson biopic showcases two legends playing legends at a turning point in MLB history. The late Chadwick Boseman sports a Dodgers uniform (jersey number 42) to channel Robinson, and Harrison Ford surprises as team owner Branch Rickey, who recruited the player into the majors. The minute Ford graces the screen, you’ll do a double take. The larger-than-life movie star goes full character actor, adopting a Southern accent and an easygoing flair. Boseman, meanwhile, projects persuasive athleticism and a remarkable ability to communicate the inner strife that Robinson could not express freely in his pioneering public role. As the camera follows the rookie walking into the Dodgers’ locker room for the first time, greeting hostility within, then stepping on to the field, confronting racist taunts from spectators and opponents, you feel the enormous weight of his bravery. Though Boseman’s eyes throw daggers, they stay on the ball. Later, as he runs the bases after a pennant-clinching home run, blazing the trail for players of color and remaking baseball in the process, you’ll want to stand up and cheer. This is the kind of hero they make movies about.

  If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! I’m currently lining up events for the upcoming launch of No Crying in Baseball, and I’ll keep you posted on the schedule. On publication day, you can find me signing books at Chicago’s most charming bookstore, City Lit, circa 6:30 p.m. More soon! Yours in “Patricia makes coffee nervous,” Erin.