{"id":26776,"date":"2024-07-07T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-are-the-best-baseball-films-connie-mack-coaches-weigh-in\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:45:15","slug":"what-are-the-best-baseball-films-connie-mack-coaches-weigh-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-are-the-best-baseball-films-connie-mack-coaches-weigh-in\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the best baseball films? Connie Mack coaches weigh in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The cast of \u201cThe Sandlot,\u201d released by 20th Century Fox in 1993. (20th Century Fox)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FARMINGTON \u2013 It can be debated that there\u2019s more to life than baseball. I\u2019d make the case that sometimes baseball mirrors life. Since one of the most important things we do in our life is to find ways to entertain ourselves, I take a certain pride in being a film snob, particularly when it comes to baseball movies.<\/p>\n

As a lifelong baseball fan, I take the cinematic interpretation of the sport very seriously. The only other sport which translates so well to the big screen, in my estimation, is boxing.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, and with the Connie Mack World Series right around the corner, I asked several coaches leading their teams into battle for the CMWS which baseball movies caught their attention and furthered their love of the game (pun clearly intended).<\/p>\n

\"Steven
Steven Bortstein<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Interestingly, one movie, \u201cThe Sandlot,\u201d seemed to be at or near the top of many coaches lists. The 1993 film follows a group of young baseball players during the summer of 1962. The movie is set in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, while filming locations were in Midvale, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah.<\/p>\n

The film grossed $34 million worldwide and has since become a bit of a cult classic.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019The Sandlot\u2019 captures the true essence of baseball, the deep love of the game and kids chasing their dreams,\u201d said Frackers head coach Eli Wyatt.<\/p>\n

Jeff Kiraly, who is looking to guide the 505 Panthers back to the CMWS, had no hesitation in calling out his favorite baseball movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to see \u2018Bull Durham\u2019 when I was young and that was big for me,\u201d Kiraly said. \u201cI\u2019m also a big fan of \u2018The Natural\u2019 because I like the more serious baseball movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landry Mayo, who will be leading the Dallas Patriots onto the baseball fields across Farmington this week in hopes of winning the CMWS, also praised \u201cThe Sandlot\u201d as an essential baseball film.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019The Sandlot\u2019 is a childhood classic that represents the innocence of being a kid and playing the game with your friends,\u201d Mayo said. \u201cNo uniforms, no umpires, just playing until the sun goes down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett Bergman, who guided the Dallas Tigers to victory in last year\u2019s Connie Mack World Series, took a different approach when it comes to his theatrical representations of baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Bull Durham\u2019 is a comedy classic that shares insight into minor league baseball with great characters, Crash Davis & Nuke LaLoosh,\u201d Bergman said. \u201c\u201942\u2019 is an incredible story about a man that had so much impact to the game of baseball and society. It is really amazing what Jackie Robinson endured during his career. He is a baseball and American icon and hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bergman also enjoyed the comedic stylings of \u201cMajor League\u201d, which tells the story of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians and is one of the most enduring film franchises of the late part of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Greg Byron, head coach of the High Performance Tigers from Mississauga, Ontario, shared Bergman\u2019s enthusiasm regarding Major League, but also gave special attention to one of my personal favorite baseball films, \u201cEight Men Out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Chicago
Chicago White Sox third baseman Jake Lamb walks through a cornfield before a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Dyersville, Iowa. The Yankees and White Sox are playing at a temporary stadium in the middle of a cornfield at the \u201cField of Dreams\u201d movie site, the first Major League Baseball game held in Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall\/The Associated Press)<\/span>onset<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Released in 1988, \u201cEight Men Out\u201d is based on Eliot Asinof\u2019s 1963 book of the same name, recalling the tale of the 1919 World Series. The film is a dramatization of Major League Baseball\u2019s Black Sox Scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cool story on one of the most historic things to ever happen in baseball,\u201d Byron said.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, none of the coaches we spoke to mentioned \u201cField of Dreams,\u201d \u201cA League Of Their Own\u201d or \u201cFor Love of the Game,\u201d the only film in which the late Vin Scully makes an appearance as an announcer of a fictional Major League game.<\/p>\n

Keith Law, senior baseball writer at The Athletic, wrote a column earlier this year on baseball movies for RogerEbert.com<\/a>, a website dedicated to the late film critic which still provides reviews for current films.<\/p>\n

In Law\u2019s column, he writes extensively about a film called \u201cSugar,\u201d a mostly unknown piece released in 2008, following the story of Miguel Santos, also known as Sugar (Algenis Perez Soto), a Dominican pitcher struggling to make it to the big leagues and pull himself and his family out of poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cSugar\u201d was not a hit at the box office and was eventually released on DVD for home video in September 2009, but received mainly favorable reviews.<\/p>\n

Whatever your choice is for a night away from the ballpark, it\u2019s hard to go wrong with a film about the sport.<\/p>\n

Unless of course you\u2019re talking about \u201cAngels In The Outfield\u201d or \u201cTrouble With The Curve.\u201d Those two movies are unforgivably bad.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baseball on the big screen has made for some great and not so great moments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[470,2127,799,28,1107,2128,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-baseball","tag-connie-mack-world-series","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-movies","tag-ricketts-park","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79474,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26776\/revisions\/79474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26776"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}