“Don’t leave home without it!”
The Cleveland Indians (yeah, I said it) are finally in the race for the pennant and, as a result, they get to star in their very own credit card commercial. The main reason that I love this scene is because, even when appearing in a commercial, each member of the the team still has their own personality and style.
From Major League, one of the greatest baseball films ever made:
I nearly shared the “there’s no crying in baseball” scene from A League Of Their Own as a reminder to myself not to cry, no matter what the Rangers’s final record is.
But then I decided that I would rather share this scene from 42, in which Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) takes his team to the World Series! Forget about Black Panther and Da 5 Bloods. This was Boseman’s greatest performance.
Last night, I was tying to not scream in frustration. Tonight, I’m cheering!
After last night’s humiliating loss, I had to share our victory today. It wasn’t necessarily a pretty victory. The Astros never should have gotten within three runs of tying up the game. But it’s a victory all the same. It’s a win and I’m happy!
Go Rangers go!
I haven’t really sad much about the Rangers this season because they’ve really been struggling and I haven’t had much happy news to report. Right now, everyone is down on the team’s prospects, even though we haven’t even played the All-Star Game yet. There’s a lot of baseball left to play and you never know when a team might turn their fortunes around. That’s one of the things that I love about this game. A team can always make a comeback and I’ve seen the Rangers make plenty.
Still, when I see something like this:
Oh, Rangers! Why must you break my heart?
I still have faith in my team. I always have faith in them. That’s why they’re my team, no matter how many times they left me screaming into a pillow and hoping no one gets the wrong idea. Rangers, I love you! Even when you lose to the Astros!
Please don’t do it again.
LeVar Burton stars as Ron LeFore. After growing up on the hard streets of Detroit and getting addicted to heroin, Ron is arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to four years in prison. It’s in prison that Ron starts playing baseball and proves himself to be so good at the game that he’s offered a contract with Tigers. (Manager Billy Martin plays himself.) Out of prison, Ron proves himself on the field but he worries about his younger brother (Larry B. Scott), who is still trying to survive in Detroit.
This movies was made for television and no one’s going to mistake it for anything other than a television movie. When the movie was made, Ron LeFore was still playing in the Major Leagues. Several players appear as themselves and the movie feels pretty sanitized. None of the other players give Ron a hard time about being a baseball player on parole. Instead, they’re all supportive and encouraging from the minute he arrives. They’re the nicest jocks around! I like baseball players. I still light up whenever I think about the way Elvis Andrus would smile when he was playing for the Rangers. But even I know that players like to give each other a hard time.
I still liked the movie because it was about second chances and one of the things that I love about baseball is that it’s a game that gives second chances. There is always another chance to hit the ball. There’s always another chance to make a game-saving catch. There’s always another chance to throw a strike. A player who struggles on one team can become a star on another. While the rest of the world gave up Ron LeFore, his family believed in him. The city of Detroit believed in him. Baseball believed in him.
LeVar Burton isn’t the most convincing baseball player that I’ve ever seen but Ron LeFore’s story still moved me. After this movie aired, LeFore went on to set franchise records for stealing bases. After playing a few seasons with the White Sox, he retired from the game in 1983.
Former player-turned-manager Joe Torre (Paul Sorvino) faces the challenge of his career when he’s hired as the new manager of the New York Yankees. Working with a team full of tired veterans and troubled rookies and having to deal with opinionated owner George Steinbrenner (Kenneth Welsh), Torre leads the team to the World Series. Meanwhile, Joe’s brother, Frank Torre (Robert Loggia), battles for his life when it’s determined that he needs a heart transplant. Soon, the team is playing for Joe and winning for Frank.
I guess this was made for HBO, after the Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 World Series. I was just a kid in 1996 and I certainly wasn’t a baseball fan at the time so I didn’t watch that World Series when it was played. Luckily, so much footage from the series is included in Curveballs Along The Way that I now feel like I did watch the entire thing. Curveballs Along The Way is a good film for baseball fans. Paul Sorvino comes across as being the ideal manager. He’s who you want in your team’s dugout, going with his gut and deciding whether to replace the pitcher or keep him in all the way through the final inning. The main appeal of the film, though, is all the real game footage that is used. Of course, you can see most of that footage on YouTube now so I guess there’s really no point to watching the movie unless you’re a big fan of Paul Sorvino or Robert Loggia.
Curveballs Along The Way is a baseball movie that celebrates the game and that people that play it and, most importantly, it was better than Here Come The Tigers. I liked it.
Artist Unknown
Happy Babe Ruth Day! This is the poster for a lost 1927 movie starring Babe Ruth.
Earlier today, I finally watched The Natural.
As a baseball fan, it feels like heresy to admit that it took me this long to watch The Natural. I had seen plenty of scenes from the film. I knew the music because there’s no way you can watch as much as baseball as I do without hearing it at least a few times every scene. I knew about Wonderboy and the big home run and how Roy Hobbs came out of nowhere to lead the perennially last-place New York Knights to the championship series but I had never actually watched the entire film from beginning to end.
Until this afternoon.
When the movie started, I was worried. Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, an outstanding hitter whose promising career appears to be over when a mysterious woman (Barbara Hersey) shoots him in the gut. At the start of the movie, Roy and his girlfriend Iris (Glenn Close) are supposed to be teenagers but Redford was nearly 50 and Glenn Close was close to 40. The whole point of the first part of the movie is that Roy and Iris are young and they have their whole future ahead of them but the actors were both clearly middle-aged. There was a scene where Roy strikes out the best batter in the league (Joe Don Baker) and the batter kept calling Roy a kid but Redford looked like he was older than Baker.
The good thing is that you only have to buy Redford as being a teenager for about 15 minutes. After he gets shot, Roy stops playing for several years. By the time Roy makes it to the major leagues, he’s supposed to be older than everyone else. No one gives Roy much of a chance when he’s first signed to the New York Knights. The other players (including Michael Madsen) don’t respect him and the manager (Wilford Brimley) refuses to play him. But when Roy Hobbs finally does get a chance to swing his home-made bat, he hits homer after homer. Roy is a natural, the next great player even if he is at an age when most players retire. A journalist (Robert Duvall) tries to uncover his background. A seductress (Kim Basinger) tries to lead him astray. A gambler (Darren McGavin) and the team’s owner (Robert Prosky) try to get him to throw the big game. Anyone who has watched a baseball game knows how it ends because we’ve all heard the music and seen that clip. But even if everyone knows how the story concludes, it’s impossible not to cheer when Roy gets a hit and to feel bad when he takes a strike. Redford may have been old for a baseball player but he looked good out there, swinging that bat and throwing that ball.
I loved The Natural. It’s extremely sentimental movie. Sometimes, it feels old-fashioned. That’s perfect for baseball, though. Baseball is a sentimental, old-fashioned game and the story of Roy Hobbs is what baseball is all about. The Knights are behind for most of the season. Roy hits a slump. But neither he nor the team ever give up because they know that baseball is a game of endurance. It’s not like football, where you just have to win 9 games to make it to the playoffs. Baseball is about never giving up, no matter what the score is. Even the movie’s supernatural aspects — the sudden storms, a lightning bolt hitting a tree and creating Wonderboy, and even Glenn Close looking like an angel in the stands — work because baseball is a mystical sport. It’s the closest thing we have to a spiritual sport.
You couldn’t make a movie like The Natural about football or basketball. Only the game of baseball could have given us The Natural.
From 1975 to 1980, this song was played before every Rangers home game and also after every Rangers victory! I listened to it and I loved it. I wish they still played it.
Go Rangers!
Last night, I watched Major League baseball’s Opening Night on Netflix.
As a baseball fan, streaming the first game of the major league season on only one service didn’t really sit well with me but, with the way things are going, everything is eventually going to be exclusively on streaming and Disney, Prime, and Netflix will probably all merge to become one gigantic, extremely expensive streaming service. I did feel bad for the baseball fans who might not have or even want Netflix and who didn’t want to have to get it for just one night. The Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams Game are going to be Netflix exclusives as well.
The game was blow-out. The Yankees won 7-0 and, after the second inning, it was pretty clear who was going to win the game. The Giants didn’t have it last night but you should never try to predict an entire baseball season based on just one game. Take it from someone who has spent many seasons getting way too excited just because the Rangers won their first few games. Baseball isn’t like football. In football, you only have to survive a handful of games. Baseball requires endurance, commitment, and patience.
I liked Netflix’s production of the game, even the parts that were a little corny. The Giants jumping over a trolley to run out onto the field? The Yankees surrounded by taxis as they were introduced to the crowd? It’s baseball. It’s the American pastime. It’s okay if it’s silly sometimes.
So far, seven runs have been scored in the regular 2026 baseball season and they were all scored by Yankees. That’s going to change later today, though.
Go Rangers!
Through the Shattered Lens 