The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Redford as Hobbs the best there ever was
It was a beautiful day on May 3.
The sun was shining. The sky was clear. Birds were chirping.
The only thing missing was baseball. I miss the sound of the crack of the bat. I miss the smell of a hot dog at the ballpark.
Most of all, I miss the players. I fell in love with the game in 1980, when the Royals’ George Brett lit up the summer like a firecracker on the Fourth of July. Brett flirted with .400 for the season, reaching the mark in September.
It was a real thing nationwide. So was Joe Charboneau, who burst onto the scene as a rookie phenom in 1980 with the Indians. He eventually won American League Rookie of the Year, but a few years later fizzled out because of injuries and — some would argue — hard living.
Brett’s summer of 1980 could make for an interesting sports documentary, and so could Charboneau’s story.
Back to the real thing. We still don’t have baseball but reports say it could be close to returning. The novel coronavirus pandemic has already wiped out more than a month of the 2020 season.
I want it back, or a semblance of it. Maybe there’s the next player chasing .400 ready to go in 2020. I want to watch the next rookie phenom.
Instead, many baseball fans are settling for art imitating life, and that’s OK. Some of the best players are the ones in baseball films. Everyone has their list of favorites. We love them — maybe just as much as the real ones.
That’s when you know a baseball film has hit it outta the park.
Here’s one man’s list — not the definitive list — of the best fictional baseball players in a movie. Three criteria were used for rankings — acting skills, baseball skills, and believability.
1. Roy Hobbs, “The Natural”
ACTING SKILLS » Robert Redford. “The Sting.” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” “All the President’s Men.” “Three Days of the Condor” … for those wondering.
BASEBALL SKILLS » Redford is 83, and I’d bet he can still show off that left-handed swing that sold me in the 1984 film. He was in his mid-40s during the filming, but that swing definitely looks 20 years younger. Redford told Sports Illustrated in 1984 he stopped playing baseball by his late teens, and didn’t play again until filming for “The Natural.” Tidbit time: Redford actually hit a home run during one take. “Yes, I did, before a crowd of thousands,” Redford told SI.
BELIEVABILITY » “The Natural” was a novel written by Bernard Malamud in the 1950s. The Hobbs character was loosely based on the Phillies’ Eddie Waitkus, who was shot by a young woman in 1949. Waitkus survived the attack, and so did Hobbs in the film. Beaten down by life following the incident, Hobbs returns to baseball and has the summer of a lifetime, capped by a dramatic home run only Hollywood could produce. Beyond that, Redford pulls off the old-time baseball look so perfect, we as viewers feel as if we’re in a time machine — and not streaming from our homes on Netflix.
BEST HOBBS QUOTE » “And then? And then when I walked down the street people would’ve looked and they would’ve said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.”
2. Crash Davis, “Bull Durham”
ACTING SKILLS » “The Untouchables,” “JFK,” and “Dancing With Wolves” gave Costner critical acclaim, but no actor has this baseball film trifecta — “Bull Durham,” “Field of Dreams” and “For Love of the Game.”
BASEBALL SKILLS » The second of three straight actors who pull of a left-handed swing beautifully, Costner is even better showing off his skills as a catcher. BELIEVABILITY » When we first see Davis, he walks into the office of the Durham Bulls’ manager. An assistant coach asks, “Who are you?” Davis: “I’m the player to be named later.”
From there, Costner owns the role of a career minorleaguer.
BEST DAVIS QUOTE » “I’m the player to be named later.”
3. Jack Elliot, “Mr. Baseball”
ACTING SKILLS » Long known as playing Thomas Magnum in the iconic 1980s TV show “Magnum, P.I.,” Tom Selleck is basically playing Magnum as a washed up major-leaguer sent to Japan. And he’s great.
BASEBALL SKILLS » After Redford in “The Natural,” Selleck has the sweetest left-handed swing in baseball movie history.
BELIEVABILITY » Magnum was long known on the show as a Tigers fan, so when “Mr. Baseball” ends and a flash forward shows Elliot character is a coach with Detroit, it works perfectly.
BEST ELLIOT QUOTE » “We’re not athletes, we’re baseball players.”
4. Rick Vaughn, “Major League”
ACTING SKILLS » Charlie Sheen in “Platoon” or “Wall Street” might have brought him more acclaim, but there’s an argument to be made playing “Wild Thing” was the character he was born to portray.
BASEBALL SKILLS » Forget Timothy Robbins as Nuke Galosh in “Bull Durham” or Costner as Billy Chapel in “For the Love of the Game.” No one throws it better off the mound in a movie than Sheen.
BELIEVABILITY » Sheen is Vaughn. Vaughn is Sheen.
BEST VAUGHN QUOTE » “You put snot on the ball?”
5. Kelly Leak, “The Bad News Bears”
ACTING SKILLS » Meh, but Jackie Earle Haley was just 13 years old during the filming of the 1976 film. He stars as the neighborhood troublemaker who smokes and rides his motorcycle but is also the best youth baseball player in town.
BASEBALL SKILLS » Not much to speak of, but remarkable considering Haley told the USA Today in 2014 he never played baseball. “You know what, I never really got into sports at all,” he said.
BELIEVABILITY » Kudos to the then-13-year-old actor. Haley looked good enough for me as the home-run hitting Leak.
BEST LEAK QUOTE » “I got a Harley Davidson. Does that turn you on?”