With spring training rolling, I don't want to write too much about it. We'll just talk about it on the Beer Pen podcast, but it's been awhile since I've wrote anything resembling an article so here it goes. My top 5 baseball movies of all time. It was hard to narrow this list down and I'm sure I'm forgetting one, but here it goes. We will cover this in a podcast later in spring training too.

5. The Bad News Bears, 1976. A great flick, funny as hell and completely ruined when it was remade with Billy Bob Thorton. This is the perfect example of why we shouldn't try and re-make classic movies. What is funnier than a drunken coach and kids making off color jokes? Not much, that's for sure.

4. The Rookie, 2002. Dennis Quade plays the part of a high school teacher/high school baseball coach. He realizes he still has it and makes a deal with his team, if they can win the championship, he'll try out for the bigs again. They win and he tries out. Did I mention he is a 39 year old father of three? His family supports him and -spoiler- he eventually makes it to the big leagues. It's a story I probably wouldn't have liked as much if I wasn't a father of two who had dreams of playing baseball for a living. Obviously, I could never throw a ball in the eighties or higher though. It's a good flick, check it out.

3. Bull Durham, 1988. This is one that tops most peoples lists of favorite baseball movies. It is supposed to be the most realistic portrayal of minor league ball. It looks like what you hear about in real life. Costner is great in this and so are Susan Surandon and Tim Robbins. It's funny and heartbreaking, without being phoney. I had to flip a coin to choose between this and another favorite, Field of Dreams, which you either love or hate. But Bull Durham was more about baseball than one man's journey to connect with his father. If you haven't seen this one, check it out.

2. Major League, 1989. My introduction to Charlie Sheen, who is a staple reference to crazy and drug addled on our podcast. He played the one and only Wild thing. The man everybody tried to pitch like playing baseball as a kid. Then there was Pedro Cerrano, and everybody who has ever played ball once said "Fuck You, Jobu. I do it myself." I recently saw Cerrano jerseys for sale online and I may order one. Bob Uecker as Harry Doyle may be my favorite role in a movie of all time. The one liners from this movie are still quoted 20 years later, fuck Oscars and awards, this is the judge of what makes a great movie. The older I get the more I appreciate this movie.

1. The Sandlot, 1993. A movie that came out when I was 11 years old, which is around the age of the kids in the movie, made it easy to relate to the flick. We played a lot of sandlot ball growing up in a small town of 500. Smalls wasn't any good at baseball and I wasn't great either. Everybody can relate to all aspects of this movie, everybody in the group of friends was like somebody you knew. Who didn't know a smartass fat kid, a guy with a brother who copied everything he said, a dork and a black kid. Well, we didn't know the black kid, but you get my point. It's not a racist thing, it's a lack of black kids in the area at the time thing. Every town had the hot older chick and the place where you went to swim. Every kid got sick from chew at one point or another. And while you may not have gotten chased by a giant dog, every kid got in a pickle.

Movies that just missed the list. Baseketball, Field of Dreams, Pride of the Yankees.

Thanks.
Ronald