The ultimate fictional movie baseball team
The irresistible best baseball team on paper, including characters from the best Baseball Movie You've Never Seen
Two things inspired this post.
The first: someone recently called me Mr. Baseball, I think it was a compliment, which led to a discussion of Tom Selleck vs Kevin Costner, and the power of a mustache.
The second: Over at Joe Blogs, a reader asked him the following question:
From BR Peggy: You have the chance to own a baseball team consisting of players whom you have known personally and like to hang out with.
I didn’t want to totally steal the answer to Peggy’s question, so I pivoted to a baseball team of fictional movie characters. That sounds fun.
Come for the list, stay for all the legendary embedded movie clips.
Starting Lineup
Catcher – Crash Davis (Bull Durham). This is the best baseball movie character, period, and quite possibly the best fictional athlete of any sports movie. Kevin Costner looks the part. He’s a great ballplayer. He’s funny. He’s realistic. He’s cursed with too much self awareness. He’s full of life lessons. And he delivered the ultimate sermon when asked what he believes in. I used to have this speech memorized and need to re-memorize it.
First base – Jack Elliott (Mr. Baseball). Tom Selleck famously wore a Detroit Tigers cap on Magnum PI because he was such a huge fan of the team. Selleck looked like a ballplayer and needed to be cast in a baseball movie. It should have occurred a decade sooner. Finally, he plays aging former star first baseman Jack Elliott, a former World Series MVP who hit .235 the previous season and gets traded to Japan to make room for a rookie played by – checks notes – Frank Thomas!
Second base – Tanner Boyle (Bad News Bears). Let’s start by agreeing to ignore Tanner’s 1970s rants, which definitely do not age well. He played second base in the original movie, then moved to shortstop in the sequel. Tanner makes my team because he refused to leave the field when the exhibition game at The Astrodome reached the time limit and kept running in circles from security while his coach led the fans in chanting, “Let Them Play.”
Shortstop – Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez (The Sandlot). Benny The Jet wasn’t just a legendary player in his neighborhood. He befriended the nerdy new kid, invited him to play, gave him an extra glove, and taught him how to throw. The ultimate leader who was part coach, played every position, and famously jumped the fence to outrun the Beast in a pickle. The stuff of legends.
Third base – Roger Dorn (Major League). The options at third base are limited. Apparently, third base isn’t a position made for good movie characters. I really didn’t want to put Roger Dorn on this list. He was an overrated prima donna who didn’t want to get dirty. Anybody got a better option for third base. Anyone?
Left field – Kelly Leak (Bad News Bears). The epitome of the coolest kid in town. He rode a motorcycle, he smoked cigarettes, hated authority, a juvenile delinquent who won a bet on an Air Hockey game to take a girl to a Rolling Stones concert … and was the best athlete in town. Then he showed his sensitive side in the sequel, calling his estranged dad when the Bears needed a coach in Houston.
Center field – Willie Mays Hayes (Major League). The movie version of Rickey Henderson, my all-time favorite player, Willie Mays Hayes was the ultimate in style, charisma and charm. The scene of Hayes waking up in the parking lot in his pajamas and then winning a sprinting race at spring training set the tone for the movie. He stole bases, robbed home runs, and dazzled in commercials.
Right field – Roy Hobbs (The Natural). This really doesn’t need an explanation. The final scene of the movie is so dramatic, with the most perfect score ever created, that no sports movie has been able to touch it. Instead, every sports movie has to find a ridiculous ending, or the team has to end, because this ending was so perfect it can’t be touched.
Designated hitter – Stud Cantrell (Long Gone). You’ve never heard of Long Gone? It’s the best baseball movie you’ve never seen, a straight-to-HBO Classic from 1987. Stud Cantrell is the manager, general manager, star pitcher, and switch-hitting slugger in the racially segregated south in the 1940s. He’s Shohei Ohtani, Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman … and he ends up with the spectacular Virginia Madsen in her prime. There will be more players from the “Tampico Stogies” on my bench.
Reserved position players
Catcher -- Joe Louis Brown (Long Gone). Blacks were not allowed on the team, so Stud convinced him to pretended to be Venezuelan to keep the bigots away. Joe goes as Jose, hits the ball a country mile, galvanizes the team with a song on his harmonica, then the team rallies around him when the Ku Klux Klan wanted to harm him.
Second base – Jamie Don Weeks (Long Gone). A young Dermit Mulroney plays a slick-fielding but light-hitting second baseman, fresh out of high school. He falls for the virginal and church-going local girl who wants to escape town. He turns into a leader down the stretch when the movie reaches its climatic moments over greed and bribery.
Catcher – Dottie Henson (A League Of Their Own). I know we already have two catchers, but she caught a foul ball while doing the splits! And she hit bombs! Of course Dottie is on my team.
First base — Stan Ross (Mr 3000). I can’t imagine why we’d ever need a pinch hitter in this lineup, but Stan is the ultimate character to keep the dugout lively.
Outfield -- Mickey Hart (For Love of the Game). He robbed a home run at Yankee Stadium to preserve a perfect game. Ideal late game substitution for Roy Hobbs.
Pitchers
Ryan Dunne (Summer Catch). Primarily, I want to ensure Jessica Biel is around my team, but let’s not forget Ryan Dunne goes from the Cape Cod League to the majors. The lefty always reminded me of Cole Hamels. Fun fact about Freddie Prinze, Jr., the actor who played Dunne: he was once a batboy for the Albuquerque Dukes.
Amanda (Bad News Bears). With a curveball that broke three feet, nobody could touch her. I’m sure she needed “Tommy John” surgery after all the pitches Coach Buttermaker forced her to throw that season. But she’ll be dedicated to the recovery and slot as the ideal No. 2 starter in my rotation.
Billy Chapel (For Love of the Game). The dude threw a perfect game, so I guess he should on the roster. But let’s not forget. This was the final game of his career. Do we need to talk him out of retirement to pitch on my roster? Also, this is why we need multiple catchers. Kevin Costner can’t pitch and catch in the same game.
Henry Rowengartner (Rookie of the Year). Yes, the kid threw 100 mile-an-hour thunderbolts after a freak accident. But again, details matter: he was a reliever for most of the movie, then slipped in the ninth inning of the final game and his magical arm lost all its power. He was back to being an unskilled Little Leaguer.
Nuke LaLoosh (Bull Durham). I know, the character is great, he threw really hard and had a few good starts when the team got hot. But he still never learned a curveball and melted down when his dad came to visit. Nuke wasn’t reliable. I guess I’ll make him my fifth starter. Our pitching is in shambles. We better score a lot of runs.
Steve Nebraska (The Scout). This movie had promise, but Brendan Frasier was just not believable as a pitcher. Nebraska threw a perfect game — 54 pitches, all strikes — so it’d be foolish not to put him on the staff. I’m just gonna save him for the playoffs. I need more pitching depth.
Stud Cantrell (Long Gone). Don’t forget, he was a two-way sensation. He’ll log a lot of quality innings and he’s our manager. I’ll trust that he knows how to manage himself. Hopefully, this clip starts at the 19:22 mark to see Stud in all his pitching/hitting glory.
Ricky Vaughn (Major League). Of course, we close out our team with The Wild Thing. Easy to forget he was a starting pitcher the entire movie, then moved to the bullpen for the clincher. The movie debuted in 1988. The entrance of the Wild Thing is legendary and became copied in real life … but it took a full decade. It wasn’t until 1998, when Padres closer Trevor Hoffman came out to “Hells Bells” that closer entrances became a thing.
That’s my team. If nothing else, the press will love this team. The pregame and postgame interviews will be legendary.
Who did I forget?
Hey, Josh. I loved Studs Terkel and "Long Gone" and I'm glad you reminded everyone of it. But for manager, you gotta have Lou Brown in there. Studs can be player/pitching coach. And I'd bring in Billy Heywood for bench coach during summer break.
So, part of the criteria is fictional characters from movies, so no biopics or situations. So that eliminates Jackie Robinson, Shoeless Joe, Babe Ruth, etc. So, let's look at movies you've omitted and what characters might make an opposing team?
Bang The Drum Slowly, Robert DeNiro as Bruce, Catcher
Field of Dreams... A fictionalized version of a player count: After all Ray Liotta plays Shoeless Joe right handed. If not, how about Moonlight Graham, Pitcher.
Sandlot. Of course you went with Benny. But what about we get a fictional Negro League star in there, Mr. Mertle, played by James Earl Jones. After all, he's in a picture with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
Everybody Wants Some. An under appreciated Richard Linklater film with a Dazed and Confused vibe. I'll go with Tyler Hoechlin as McReynolds, outfield.
Brewster's Millions, Richard Pryor. Pitcher.
OK, now I've just spent an hour on this... Thanks Josh