The 2 Best Baseball Movies Of All Time (And 3 That Struck Out)

It's summertime, the sun is out, and the weather is warm – -what better time to get out on the pitching diamond and hit the old horsehide around? Or even better, avoid sunburn and bugs and stay inside to watch some really great fictional games. But there are so many wonderful, even underrated movies about America's favorite pastime, how can you possibly pick the right flick to fill your afternoon with joy?

Naturally, not every baseball-centered movie is going to be a winner. For every great film like "Bull Durham" or "Angels in the Outfield," there's an eye-watering stinker like "Little Big League" or any "Sandlot" sequel you can name. In this article, we've selected two major league victors and three disasters. They're all guaranteed to give you a good time regardless if you feel like watching something ridiculous or something that brightens the soul. Which ones knock it out of the park and which ones strike out?

Penny Marshall's "A League of Their Own" brings a lot to the plate, including impeccable research, a tense relationship between sisters and their coach, a freewheeling sense of fun, and a true love of the game. Focusing on Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis), a tough tomboy catcher with a strong arm and a love of baseball, the film follows her from dairy farm nobody to darling of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. It's up to the ladies of the AAGPBL to keep spirits high as World War II rages and the U.S. turns to the league to keep baseball fever alive.

Dottie has an intense rivalry with her younger sister, Kit Keller (Lori Petty), that ultimately puts them on opposing teams. It all comes to a head in the ending of "A League of Their Own," as Dottie's Rockford Peaches are pitted against Kit's Racine Belles in the World Series, with the battle coming down to skill, nerve, and chutzpah. Also along for the ride is an irascible Tom Hanks as the slightly-foul major league washout and team coach Jimmy "Avoid the Clap" Dugan, and Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna as Mutt-and-Jeff best friends Doris and Mae. 

Marshall directs the film with verve, liveliness, and a clear adoration for the sport. The women on each team did most of their own playing and came away with the bruises (some of them caught on film) to prove it. As a character study, a baseball tale, or a time capsule of a slice of forgotten wartime history, "A League of their Own" is tops.

It might be considered sappy these days, but "The Natural" isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) spends the film's runtime struggling mightily to fulfill his early promise, surviving a murder attempt, his father's death at a young age, medical trauma, scandal, and a 16-year layoff that has every coach in the league believing he's too old to make it in the bigs. When he finally smashes that home run out of the park, wins the pennant, and proves everyone wrong, one is encouraged to jump to their feet and cheer.

All it takes for Roy to access his old talent is the love of a good woman, Iris Gaines (Glenn Close). Iris and Roy share a past that Roy has ignored, but can no longer forget once she shows up. Now he must prove himself to be the kind of man he's always claimed he is — the best there ever was — for the sake of his family.  

Is it cheesy and cliched? Sure. But is it also gripping, emotionally moving, and engrossing to the nth degree? Yes, it is. "The Natural" is ultimately unforgettable, and for a very good reason. But not every baseball movie is memorable for such noble reasons.

It's a movie about a baseball-playing monkey.  Need we say more? All right — it also nearly killed off any hope Matt LeBlanc had of being seen as anyone other than Joey Tribbiani for all time and stalled his hope for a film career until 1998's dark-hued flop remake of "Lost In Space" arrived. 

LeBlanc plays Jack "Deuce" Cooper, an ace pitcher signed to the Santa Rosa Rockets. Jack has talent to spare and might be what the team needs to make it out of the league's basement. At his tryout, he meets Ed, a chimpanzee who not only plays on the team but is now his roommate on the road and off it. While Jack falls for Lydia (Jayne Brook), their new next-door neighbor, Ed makes friends with Lydia's daughter, Liz. The partnership improves everyone's game and all seems copacetic — until the team's owners try to sell Ed to cruel individuals.

The film was a notorious critical bomb that won a plethora of Razzie nominations. It also didn't fare well commercially, pulling in over $4 million. "Ed" didn't take home any spray-painted statuettes – only because it was fortunate to come out the same year as two other box-office bombs, "The Postman" and "Striptease."

There's paying tribute to a legend and then there's lying so thoroughly about his background that one expects Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to hop out and start praising him. "The Babe Ruth Story" was supported by the then-dying legend himself, which is perhaps why it's so reverent about its subject matter. Ruth's actual history of rough-and-tumble antics (and constant infidelity) is ignored in favor of making him into a secular saint. 

This version of Ruth (played by comic actor William Bendix) is the kind of man who leaves a high-stakes baseball game to deliver an injured dog to a veterinarian. A fella who goes to a bar and requests milk. A guy who causes at least two children to miraculously heal themselves simply by reacting to his presence. And he can play baseball too! The film even dares to think of a positive ending for his cancer diagnosis, leaving him hopefully alive at the end of the narrative.

It's a movie that even erases the existence of his first wife, Helen Woodford, and that of his children. For these flaws and many more, "The Babe Ruth Story" has been named one of the worst biopics ever made.

Brendan Fraser is, without a doubt, one of the world's most charming leading men. Likewise, Albert Brooks is clearly one of America's leading comedic geniuses and a talented writer, director, and actor. One has no clue why on earth the two of them signed on for "The Scout," a mean-spirited movie about a baseball player whose severe childhood trauma is played for laughs — and failed pathos.

Brooks plays Al Percolo, a desperate scout for the New York Yankees looking for a hot prospect to save the season and his career. A miracle arrives in the form of Steve Nebraska (Fraser), a young American prodigy playing in Mexico. Steve seems like a sweet soul whose severe childhood abuse is both the key to his stellar baseball playing and his wild-man behavior off the diamond. His rage is accompanied by severe depression, though it might be lifted through Al's support, and that of his therapist, the unimaginatively named Dr. H. Aaron (Dianne Wiest). Will Steve recover in time to pitch the Yankees through Game 1 of the World Series?

It's a film that can't decide if it's a psychological drama or a slapstick-laden comedy — a dire difference in tones and genes that led to "The Scout" becoming a box office bomb and a critical failure. It also stands as a monument to the wasted talents of Brooks, Fraser, and Wiest, all of whom deserved better.