What is your favorite Baseball Movie and Why?

My favorite baseball movie is a 1949 B&W comedy called It Happens Every Spring starring Ray Milland. Milland plays a college professor who is a brilliant scientist and is working on a formula for a coating on wood that will make it repellent to things like bugs and mice. Through an accident he discovers his formula, when put on a baseball, will make it impossible to hit since the liquid causes the ball to repel wood. So he decides to become a major league pitcher. He travels to Saint Louis and convinces the owner of the Cardinals to give him a tryout. The tryout is hilarious. Miland is only an OK pitcher, but he struck out about 20 people in a row during the tryout. The ball was taking some amazingly funny hops over the bat. He becomes a big success. He has to keep it secret, because the President of the University (and his girlfriend’s father) thinks baseball is a waste of time. It is a FUN movie to watch.

I think my second favorite is For Love of the Game with Kevin Costner. I really like the way they tie the current game into a series of flashbacks. I also like the way Costner talks to himself on the mound.