Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.
Cindy, you spoke to me and I have tears in my eyes. I, too, love baseball due to my father. He came back from WWII a quiet, distant person. I didn't understand until1967 that he was suffering from PTSD. He was part of the first wave in the Normandy invasion, sent to build the airfields. We communed over Yankee games, and those are the memories I cherish. He hated my anti-war activities during Vietnam, and I wish I had been able to communicate with him. Maybe he would have admitted to his PTSD/moral injury and come around to my side. He died too soon. But we always have baseball. And Cindy, I love your movie list and now I will get an extra goosebumps moment when I not only relate "if you build them, they will come" to Field of Dreams but also the procession to Camp Casey. Thank you.
My daughter loved Angels in the Outfield when she was young. And she was an awesome softball player; one father told me "she throws like a boy!". Anyway, it was a fun film and recently my 6 year old grandson also watched it. He enjoyed it as well.
I too love baseball movies - good idea. I am sorry about the fever, unless it is just Spring Fever! I also Ike to watch the Twins' Games. They beat the Boston Red Sox l last night, 4 t0 3 and the Sox won the night before. Enjoy your movie binge and recover quickly unless it is only a movie fever.
Love this post Cindy! YES also to Field of Dreams, The Natural, and loved Geena Davis in A League of their own about WOMEN playing baseball during WW !! My own Dad was a great left handed pitcher in the 1930 while in the Navy, playing all around the world wherever the ship went. They'd land in a port and ask "Anybody around here play baseball? Sure enough! He ended up with a large box of game balls he brought to Maine after retirement from Navy after 20 years. With his OK, we 4 boys used them until worn out.
"My family bonded over baseball," Exactly so! My dad taught me and I taught my younger brothers and we all played from Little League through high school. But speaking of Lou Gehrig, if you haven't read THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, written by his mother Cathy Byrd. it is a must! Trust me on that.
Every baseball lover I've talked to have stories about playing baseball 24/7.
If we couldn't find any other kids available, my brother, sister, and I would play something.
Over the line, catch, practice pop-ups---if we could find other kids, we'd go to the closest park, or school and play a game. Then we all played on teams, as well. I play catch with my grandsons---they are afraid they will break me, though. LOL.
I lived near Durham from 1985-87. Everyone I worked with bought season tickets to see the Bulls. We went to every game we could. Cheered, drank beer, ate nachos with extra jalapenos, and, well, got to see all the fine young players before they got heftier from sitting on a bench for so long. This was well before the stadium was moved. Just missed being in the crowd when Bull Durham scenes were shot there, had just moved to Tampa, and almost did drive up for that, still sorry I did not. But in those days the interstates did not favor getting directly to the Triangle.
Agree with your top three completely, although I will always favor Bull Durham.
My father used to come down to Clearwater every year to watch the Phillies in spring training. I did hate going "out for dinner" to the all you can eat buffets where the players ate. And I met one of the great loves of my life because I had once been married to a relative of a very big baseball player, kept the last name, and he thought I could get tickets. Not a happy divorce, but I got my nerve up, asked politely, and for years there were great tickets for me at the will call window for that team's spring training games. Fair is fair, I was also attracted to that guy's partial ownership of Orlando Magic season tickets, and so I got to see quite a lot of Shaq and Penny. All good!
Closest I got to a pro-baseball player was Mike Kekich, a pitcher for the Yankees, whose father was my brother's varsity baseball coach at Bellflower High. Remember that wife-swap scandal in the pros? Mike was one of the participants. Anyhoo--he was home after that disgrace and came to one of the games and we sat together. I think I was a Senior in high school. I was the scorekeeper for the JV team at the time. Anyway, Mike and I talked and talked and talked and talked about baseball. He was very impressed by my baseball knowledge and he didn't hit on me, which I was relieved about. We had a nice game visit and I never saw him again. I think he was between teams at the time.
For a few years, Vacaville had a minor-league team called the Solano Steelheads. We went for free to most of the home games. They were a blast.
Two movies I saw on b&w tv when growing up were "It Happens Every Spring" and another, I don't remember the name, where Babe Ruth predicts hitting a home run IIRC after visiting a child in a hospital.
For health reasons, try not to make it a habit of eating hot dogs at the ballpark
What Goes On On and What Goes On Off the Field: A Crucial Dichotomy
We’re out to the ball park early to watch batting and fielding practice. The ushers aren't on duty yet, smoking and bullshitting, and let us go down into the empty box seats to watch up close. Willie Mays doesn’t take swings anymore, but he’s there around the batting cage. McCovey does. Blasting one pitch after another into the right field stands. To the tune of “Fucking A!” “You’ve got to be shitting me!” from the peanut gallery.
Outfield practice is also underway from the fungo toting coach along the third-base line. The players in left field know the kids are watching and are doing outrageous stunts. Hit me something I can't handle, Coach! McCovey shanks one out to left for the hell of it and they all make like they're running for cover. Goofing. Trying to get loose.
We’re older now and the West Coast version of Double-M for Murder no longer frequents the batting cage. We have become self-conscious about bringing our "mitts" to the game with us; and there aren’t as many kids around watching as when we did bring our gloves.
I read somewhere that the younger generation doesn’t have a lot of time these days to hang out at the playground, spend the day at the ballpark or take in a Saturday double feature with cartoons. Their parents and teachers are managing their lives more and more with the kind of “productive” extracurricular pursuits more apropos to college applications, curricula vitae and home safety.
The field crew has come out to drag and water down the infield, mark the chalk lines and install the brand new game bases, while the jarhead color guard starts to form for its solemn (viz. goose-stepping) assault on the pitcher’s rubber from center field. That’s our signal to meander back upstairs and get ready for the ball game.
We’re too busy for that God Bless Amerikka bullshit, and fucking sick of it, to tell you the truth. We’re draft dodgers, anti-war vets, trade unionists and foreigners of all shades, prouder of the international union cards in our wallets than some poorly designed, gaudy rag hanging from a pole and a third rate cliche-ridden tune that you can’t dance to. Way too busy.
We’ve got to go take care of nature’s business, buy our first round of beer and peanuts, inform the vendors there’s plenty more $$$ where that came from, so keep an eye on us. Remind them that the Teamsters will be ready when they’re ready to organize. And we’ve got to get our scorecards and lineups squared away.
“Lineups, Lineups. Getchur Lineups. Can’t Watch the Game without a Lineup!” scream the program vendors. Quite true, but those rags they peddle aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Four poorly printed pages of info my seven year old nephew already gleaned from this morning's Sporting Green and not enough space to score three innings (nine? forget it), hidden in between sixteen more full of ads for everything you don’t need, just like on TV. They don't even tell you the ground rules.
Hell, you can’t miss us now. Our ranks have swollen to about 4 or 5 half rows of reserved seats on either side of the aisle under the upper deck above the third base dugout looking right into the Giants’ bench. To ensure that arrangement, we take turns standing in line just in back of the scalpers on mornings when tickets go on sale over on O’Farrell. The scalpers, who arrive shortly after the bars close at 2AM, want the lucrative available box seats, and we sometimes help them get their respective quotas. And they save us a place in line in return. Everything copacetic...
We’re back in our seats for the first pitch, the “on the field” stuff. We don’t care if the Kaepernicks of the world took a knee, did a headstand twirling on their helmets or mooned the Horace Stoneham memorial box. (That’s “off the field” stuff, which needs to be taken care of in the streets, on the picket lines and in the workplace.) As a matter of fact, all our pre-game moving around helps reduce confrontations with people around us who believe they need to stand up for Amerikka whenever they think their masters expect them to and need everyone else to conform to such nonsense to allay deeply implanted fears of annihilation by the toujours foreign force of evil. More “off the field” activities. And the toilets aren’t very crowded at that particular time.
Some of us are disappointed about not being able to light farts during the 7th inning stretch anymore. Too many wives and kids and singles with hot dates now. One of the latter is wearing a Dodgers cap she brought in from Hell-A! She will be politely informed of the definition of “bush league” behavior and that we came here to watch what will hopefully be a good ballgame. The more triples, stolen bases and double plays, the better. Home runs and strikeouts? Overrated. We want the ball in play, dammit! We want to see the players "in the field" shift around for every batter. Stuff they don't show on the boob-tube, that thinks baseball is all about balls and strikes zoomed in from center field. Better to listen on the radio in the backyard, at the beach or working on your car.
We are Baseball fans, and we don’t waste our money on that over-priced non-union made and sold superficial crap. Even our kids know that their Little League caps are worn as part of their Little League uniforms on the Little League diamond, and remain hung neatly in the closet on all other occasions, just like the big leaguers do.
To all of you fat fucks draped in your faux Giants jerseys with Number 24 on the back who yell at us about disrespecting the flag. Grow up and stop making jackasses out of yourselves! The ball game, what happens on the field, doesn’t include any of that. Two exceptions in the memorabilia department, however...foul balls and broken bats. Precious spoils, magic fallout, for those of us who used to go deep on Sandy Koufax every other night in our dreams.
God, I love baseball and organized labor and beer and peanuts and Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax. Gotta respect the Say Hey Kid even though I am a lifelong, Dodger blue-bleeding "Hell-A" fan.. The Dodgers and Giants need another donnybrook, though.
Oh my gosh, I just had this conversation on Saturday with, of all people, a former player for the Padres.
He was my uber driver! I generally strike up conversations with the drivers and find most of them incredibly interesting. This driver was from Dominican Republic so of course I said
"Ah, Big Papi" (David Ortiz from the Boston Red Sox).
Turns out he knows Ortiz and then told me about his own career and that he threw the ball about 97 mph. At the end of the ride he pulled out his phone and showed me photos. He was the real thing. He injured his shoulder and elbow and needed surgery so that ended his career. Although he still plays for fun.
As a Bostonian I am steeped in Baseball culture. My grandfather worked at Fenway Park. And, of course, we have had some exciting seasons.
I love all the movies mentioned but I think my favorite Baseball lore is Ken Burns documentary from years ago. I just loved listening to all the players. And Billy Chrystal, Bob Costas and so many others. I think I'll have to give it another watch.
There is such an innocence to the simple game.
I'm not a fan of professional sports, but there is nothing like passing a baseball field in the summer watching the love of the game.
Thanks for this wonderful seventh inning break, Cindy.
As kids favoring our own work-up baseball games, I swear we all treated that fun as a game. Little League, starting with the minors, we our first foray into baseball within an institution...and the fun began to ebb. Now some 70 years later, we still indulge in MLB but only as a mild diversion, while saddened that fun comes from gardening, doing the NYT's daily Connections, cooking another pot of black bean soup, and watching one grandchild play defense in a northern VA futbol league. BB in VA
Yes, i still love the Dodgers, but I don't get too excited if they win, or too sad if they lose. Back in the day, you could see me crying if they lost a crucial game, or high as a kite if they won. One of my favorite things to do is to watch the little ones playing t-ball. They are SOOOOOOO cute. I have an almost three year old grandson who has quite an arm and quite a bat---I see baseball long into my future!
Thanks for the great column! I think you chose all the right movies! (Though I have a soft spot in my heart for The Bad News Bears.)
When I'm really, really down, I'll watch Damn Yankees and it will lift my spirits. Whatever Lola Wants and You Gotta Have Heart are amazing songs. And then as a bonus, there's Ray Walston hamming it up, the wonderful Fosse choreography! Ah, "Who's got the pain when they do the mambo? I dunno who... do you?"
Enjoy this topic! Next to 'Field of Dreams', my favorite baseball movies are also musicals (I just adore musicals), 'Damn Yankees' and 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game'.
Moneyball
Ken Burns did a good one on Jackie Robinson.
I haven't seen money ball.
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_moneyball
Oh you must. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill are great. Good movie.
Sounds like I must!
Cindy, you spoke to me and I have tears in my eyes. I, too, love baseball due to my father. He came back from WWII a quiet, distant person. I didn't understand until1967 that he was suffering from PTSD. He was part of the first wave in the Normandy invasion, sent to build the airfields. We communed over Yankee games, and those are the memories I cherish. He hated my anti-war activities during Vietnam, and I wish I had been able to communicate with him. Maybe he would have admitted to his PTSD/moral injury and come around to my side. He died too soon. But we always have baseball. And Cindy, I love your movie list and now I will get an extra goosebumps moment when I not only relate "if you build them, they will come" to Field of Dreams but also the procession to Camp Casey. Thank you.
Sorry, as a Dodgers' fan, though, I have an innate loathing of the Yankees and Giants.
Peace, though.
It's all baseball.
I am so glad I posted this---your story touched me, as well.
My father was an alcoholic--but we always had baseball.
He came to all of our games, then he came to the games of my children when they were younger.
I am glad we can all pause and share these baseball memories
xo
A League of Their Own?
I put that in my honorable mentions.
Do you think it's good, or are you opposed?
I thought it was okay.
My daughter loved Angels in the Outfield when she was young. And she was an awesome softball player; one father told me "she throws like a boy!". Anyway, it was a fun film and recently my 6 year old grandson also watched it. He enjoyed it as well.
"It Could Happen" said JC. And if anyone needs to know that "it could happen" (good things, miracles), it is my grandson.
I too love baseball movies - good idea. I am sorry about the fever, unless it is just Spring Fever! I also Ike to watch the Twins' Games. They beat the Boston Red Sox l last night, 4 t0 3 and the Sox won the night before. Enjoy your movie binge and recover quickly unless it is only a movie fever.
Dodgers beat Atlanta 10-3!
I got the itchy eyes and achoos from seasonal allergies. I'm okay. It's mostly just annoying.
What is your favorite baseball movie? Or one of your favorites?
Love this post Cindy! YES also to Field of Dreams, The Natural, and loved Geena Davis in A League of their own about WOMEN playing baseball during WW !! My own Dad was a great left handed pitcher in the 1930 while in the Navy, playing all around the world wherever the ship went. They'd land in a port and ask "Anybody around here play baseball? Sure enough! He ended up with a large box of game balls he brought to Maine after retirement from Navy after 20 years. With his OK, we 4 boys used them until worn out.
"My family bonded over baseball," Exactly so! My dad taught me and I taught my younger brothers and we all played from Little League through high school. But speaking of Lou Gehrig, if you haven't read THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, written by his mother Cathy Byrd. it is a must! Trust me on that.
Oh, interesting about the book---I will check it out!
I'd like to hear from you once read!
Thanks Cindy! I was raised playing baseball and your love for it touches something deep inside...
Thanks for letting me know!
Every baseball lover I've talked to have stories about playing baseball 24/7.
If we couldn't find any other kids available, my brother, sister, and I would play something.
Over the line, catch, practice pop-ups---if we could find other kids, we'd go to the closest park, or school and play a game. Then we all played on teams, as well. I play catch with my grandsons---they are afraid they will break me, though. LOL.
xo
It has been said that the two greatest things about America are baseball and jazz. The Ken Burns series on both are highly recommended!
https://kenburns.com/the-films/
I live in France, but still a fan of my home-town team, the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers (now from L.A.)
Yeah, eff the Yankees, huh?
I think you are absolutely correct!
I lived near Durham from 1985-87. Everyone I worked with bought season tickets to see the Bulls. We went to every game we could. Cheered, drank beer, ate nachos with extra jalapenos, and, well, got to see all the fine young players before they got heftier from sitting on a bench for so long. This was well before the stadium was moved. Just missed being in the crowd when Bull Durham scenes were shot there, had just moved to Tampa, and almost did drive up for that, still sorry I did not. But in those days the interstates did not favor getting directly to the Triangle.
Agree with your top three completely, although I will always favor Bull Durham.
My father used to come down to Clearwater every year to watch the Phillies in spring training. I did hate going "out for dinner" to the all you can eat buffets where the players ate. And I met one of the great loves of my life because I had once been married to a relative of a very big baseball player, kept the last name, and he thought I could get tickets. Not a happy divorce, but I got my nerve up, asked politely, and for years there were great tickets for me at the will call window for that team's spring training games. Fair is fair, I was also attracted to that guy's partial ownership of Orlando Magic season tickets, and so I got to see quite a lot of Shaq and Penny. All good!
awesome! Thanks for your baseball testimony!
Closest I got to a pro-baseball player was Mike Kekich, a pitcher for the Yankees, whose father was my brother's varsity baseball coach at Bellflower High. Remember that wife-swap scandal in the pros? Mike was one of the participants. Anyhoo--he was home after that disgrace and came to one of the games and we sat together. I think I was a Senior in high school. I was the scorekeeper for the JV team at the time. Anyway, Mike and I talked and talked and talked and talked about baseball. He was very impressed by my baseball knowledge and he didn't hit on me, which I was relieved about. We had a nice game visit and I never saw him again. I think he was between teams at the time.
For a few years, Vacaville had a minor-league team called the Solano Steelheads. We went for free to most of the home games. They were a blast.
Two movies I saw on b&w tv when growing up were "It Happens Every Spring" and another, I don't remember the name, where Babe Ruth predicts hitting a home run IIRC after visiting a child in a hospital.
For health reasons, try not to make it a habit of eating hot dogs at the ballpark
thebrighterside.news/post/the-hidden-health-risks-of-ballpark-hot-dogs/
What Goes On On and What Goes On Off the Field: A Crucial Dichotomy
We’re out to the ball park early to watch batting and fielding practice. The ushers aren't on duty yet, smoking and bullshitting, and let us go down into the empty box seats to watch up close. Willie Mays doesn’t take swings anymore, but he’s there around the batting cage. McCovey does. Blasting one pitch after another into the right field stands. To the tune of “Fucking A!” “You’ve got to be shitting me!” from the peanut gallery.
Outfield practice is also underway from the fungo toting coach along the third-base line. The players in left field know the kids are watching and are doing outrageous stunts. Hit me something I can't handle, Coach! McCovey shanks one out to left for the hell of it and they all make like they're running for cover. Goofing. Trying to get loose.
We’re older now and the West Coast version of Double-M for Murder no longer frequents the batting cage. We have become self-conscious about bringing our "mitts" to the game with us; and there aren’t as many kids around watching as when we did bring our gloves.
I read somewhere that the younger generation doesn’t have a lot of time these days to hang out at the playground, spend the day at the ballpark or take in a Saturday double feature with cartoons. Their parents and teachers are managing their lives more and more with the kind of “productive” extracurricular pursuits more apropos to college applications, curricula vitae and home safety.
The field crew has come out to drag and water down the infield, mark the chalk lines and install the brand new game bases, while the jarhead color guard starts to form for its solemn (viz. goose-stepping) assault on the pitcher’s rubber from center field. That’s our signal to meander back upstairs and get ready for the ball game.
We’re too busy for that God Bless Amerikka bullshit, and fucking sick of it, to tell you the truth. We’re draft dodgers, anti-war vets, trade unionists and foreigners of all shades, prouder of the international union cards in our wallets than some poorly designed, gaudy rag hanging from a pole and a third rate cliche-ridden tune that you can’t dance to. Way too busy.
We’ve got to go take care of nature’s business, buy our first round of beer and peanuts, inform the vendors there’s plenty more $$$ where that came from, so keep an eye on us. Remind them that the Teamsters will be ready when they’re ready to organize. And we’ve got to get our scorecards and lineups squared away.
“Lineups, Lineups. Getchur Lineups. Can’t Watch the Game without a Lineup!” scream the program vendors. Quite true, but those rags they peddle aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Four poorly printed pages of info my seven year old nephew already gleaned from this morning's Sporting Green and not enough space to score three innings (nine? forget it), hidden in between sixteen more full of ads for everything you don’t need, just like on TV. They don't even tell you the ground rules.
Hell, you can’t miss us now. Our ranks have swollen to about 4 or 5 half rows of reserved seats on either side of the aisle under the upper deck above the third base dugout looking right into the Giants’ bench. To ensure that arrangement, we take turns standing in line just in back of the scalpers on mornings when tickets go on sale over on O’Farrell. The scalpers, who arrive shortly after the bars close at 2AM, want the lucrative available box seats, and we sometimes help them get their respective quotas. And they save us a place in line in return. Everything copacetic...
We’re back in our seats for the first pitch, the “on the field” stuff. We don’t care if the Kaepernicks of the world took a knee, did a headstand twirling on their helmets or mooned the Horace Stoneham memorial box. (That’s “off the field” stuff, which needs to be taken care of in the streets, on the picket lines and in the workplace.) As a matter of fact, all our pre-game moving around helps reduce confrontations with people around us who believe they need to stand up for Amerikka whenever they think their masters expect them to and need everyone else to conform to such nonsense to allay deeply implanted fears of annihilation by the toujours foreign force of evil. More “off the field” activities. And the toilets aren’t very crowded at that particular time.
Some of us are disappointed about not being able to light farts during the 7th inning stretch anymore. Too many wives and kids and singles with hot dates now. One of the latter is wearing a Dodgers cap she brought in from Hell-A! She will be politely informed of the definition of “bush league” behavior and that we came here to watch what will hopefully be a good ballgame. The more triples, stolen bases and double plays, the better. Home runs and strikeouts? Overrated. We want the ball in play, dammit! We want to see the players "in the field" shift around for every batter. Stuff they don't show on the boob-tube, that thinks baseball is all about balls and strikes zoomed in from center field. Better to listen on the radio in the backyard, at the beach or working on your car.
We are Baseball fans, and we don’t waste our money on that over-priced non-union made and sold superficial crap. Even our kids know that their Little League caps are worn as part of their Little League uniforms on the Little League diamond, and remain hung neatly in the closet on all other occasions, just like the big leaguers do.
To all of you fat fucks draped in your faux Giants jerseys with Number 24 on the back who yell at us about disrespecting the flag. Grow up and stop making jackasses out of yourselves! The ball game, what happens on the field, doesn’t include any of that. Two exceptions in the memorabilia department, however...foul balls and broken bats. Precious spoils, magic fallout, for those of us who used to go deep on Sandy Koufax every other night in our dreams.
wow, I am mesmerized by your comment.
God, I love baseball and organized labor and beer and peanuts and Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax. Gotta respect the Say Hey Kid even though I am a lifelong, Dodger blue-bleeding "Hell-A" fan.. The Dodgers and Giants need another donnybrook, though.
Oh my gosh, I just had this conversation on Saturday with, of all people, a former player for the Padres.
He was my uber driver! I generally strike up conversations with the drivers and find most of them incredibly interesting. This driver was from Dominican Republic so of course I said
"Ah, Big Papi" (David Ortiz from the Boston Red Sox).
Turns out he knows Ortiz and then told me about his own career and that he threw the ball about 97 mph. At the end of the ride he pulled out his phone and showed me photos. He was the real thing. He injured his shoulder and elbow and needed surgery so that ended his career. Although he still plays for fun.
As a Bostonian I am steeped in Baseball culture. My grandfather worked at Fenway Park. And, of course, we have had some exciting seasons.
I love all the movies mentioned but I think my favorite Baseball lore is Ken Burns documentary from years ago. I just loved listening to all the players. And Billy Chrystal, Bob Costas and so many others. I think I'll have to give it another watch.
There is such an innocence to the simple game.
I'm not a fan of professional sports, but there is nothing like passing a baseball field in the summer watching the love of the game.
Thanks for this wonderful seventh inning break, Cindy.
wow! great story, Judith!
As kids favoring our own work-up baseball games, I swear we all treated that fun as a game. Little League, starting with the minors, we our first foray into baseball within an institution...and the fun began to ebb. Now some 70 years later, we still indulge in MLB but only as a mild diversion, while saddened that fun comes from gardening, doing the NYT's daily Connections, cooking another pot of black bean soup, and watching one grandchild play defense in a northern VA futbol league. BB in VA
Yes, i still love the Dodgers, but I don't get too excited if they win, or too sad if they lose. Back in the day, you could see me crying if they lost a crucial game, or high as a kite if they won. One of my favorite things to do is to watch the little ones playing t-ball. They are SOOOOOOO cute. I have an almost three year old grandson who has quite an arm and quite a bat---I see baseball long into my future!
Thanks for the great column! I think you chose all the right movies! (Though I have a soft spot in my heart for The Bad News Bears.)
When I'm really, really down, I'll watch Damn Yankees and it will lift my spirits. Whatever Lola Wants and You Gotta Have Heart are amazing songs. And then as a bonus, there's Ray Walston hamming it up, the wonderful Fosse choreography! Ah, "Who's got the pain when they do the mambo? I dunno who... do you?"
Thanks, Jeffrey! This has been a great thread!
xo
Enjoy this topic! Next to 'Field of Dreams', my favorite baseball movies are also musicals (I just adore musicals), 'Damn Yankees' and 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game'.
All the other films mentioned are great too!
Loved the visual musical pun/meme!