It’s been a while since San Diego Padres Minor Leaguer Matt Antonelli contributed to the site. Recently, he posted his favorite comedy movies over at his site.
Naturally, he received a bunch of emails asking him about his favorite baseball movies.
I banged out one of those emails and what follows is Antonelli’s Five Favorite Baseball Movies.
5. The Sandlot
I know, I know. How could I not put “The Natural” or “Field of Dreams” in here. I agree, they are both awesome movies, and definitely some of the best baseball movies ever. But for some reason I would watch “The Sandlot” over both of them if I were bored and had all three DVDs to choose from. I guess I just can’t get over my crush on comedies. “The Sandlot” just reminds me of playing pick-up baseball as a kid, and it’s funny as Hell. I had to put it in my top five or I’d be lying.
4) Rookie of the Year
Listen, Little League was one of my favorite baseball experiences of my life, and the Major Leagues isn’t too bad either. Take both of them and combine them into one movie and I’m going to watch it and like it. I’m not going to lie, I usually wouldn’t like a baseball movie that so unrealistically has a twelve-year old as a big league pitcher, but this movie is so damn funny I’ll make an exception.
3) Bull Durham
You can see that I am biased towards comedies. “Bull Durham” is not only funny as Hell, but I think they hit the baseball part of the equation right on the head. I’ve played with Crash Davis types, I’ve been teammates with characters like Nuke LaLoosh, and you don’t have to search very hard to find your Annie Savoys of minor league baseball. They just do a great job of making a really funny, yet serious baseball movie.
2) A League of Their Own
I almost wanted to put this movie at number one, but decided to put it just below. Jimmie Dugan is my favorite and funniest sports character of all-time, and hey, I’m no sexist, but who would have thought they could make a baseball movie with women players this damn good. I know I didn’t! But it happened, and I’m glad it did.
1) Major League and Major League 2
I’ve decided to put both of these movies together on the list because I really can’t decipher between the two. I actually wanted to put it on my top comedy movies of all-time, but apparently I’ve taken one too many fastballs to the dome and forgot. There are so many quotable lines in this thing I could go through a whole season and not have to use the same line twice. What an awesome pair of movies.
Just missed the top five: “The Natural”, “Field of Dreams”, “Angels in the Outfield”, “Little Big League”, “For Love of the Game” and “The Rookie”
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