Editor’s note: During the coronavirus shutdown, Arizona Daily Star staffers and contributors are answering burning sports questions.
Today’s question: What’s your favorite sports movie and why?
GREG HANSEN, sports columnist
I know more lines from “Fletch” than from “Bull Durham” but the closest thing to sports in “Fletch” is Chevy Chase in a Lakers uniform. I’ll pass on that.
If you grew up a baseball nut as I did, Kevin Coster’s character Crash Davis character delivers a sermon of the mount, baseball version, after Nuke LaLoosh tells him he’s been called up to the big leagues.
Davis says, memorably:
“You know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits. Twenty-five hits in 500 at-bats is 50 points, OK? There’s six months in a season. That’s about 25 weeks.
“That means if you get just one extra flare a week, just one, a gork, a ground ball — a ground ball with eyes! — you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week and you’re in Yankee Stadium. You still don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Bull Durham” is about gorks and ground balls with eyes. It was so cleverly written, so close to the true life of minor-league baseball, that I am not ashamed to admit I’ve watched Bull Durham at least 20 times, maybe 25.
BRUCE PASCOE, UA basketball reporter
“Hoop Dreams.” The 1994 documentary shadowed the lives of two up-and-coming inner city Chicago basketball players who never became quite what everyone expected. The dramas that played out are the sort of things that can happen today, so it’s still relevant. As a plus, former UA assistant and interim head coach Kevin O’Neill is featured in it, since he was recruiting one of the players as Marquette’s head coach at the time. Say what you want about him, but KO is always transparent and interesting.
MICHAEL SCHMELZLE, sports producer
“Rocky IV.” What other sports movie can claim to basically end the 40-year Cold War superpowers brawl between the United States and Soviet Union? First, the heart shown by the Philly southpaw on Christmas Day in Russia saw the Soviet crowd turn on its own fighter and root for Rocky. Later, Balboa’s post-fight speech after chopping down Russian giant Ivan Drago even had Gorbachev applauding … well, the fake Gorbachev anyway. Just a few years later, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Coincidence?
OK, so it’s not “Citizen Kane,” but I was just 8 and it made an impact on me. Other movies considered: “Hoosiers,” “Major League,” “Major League 2,” “Field of Dreams,” “Happy Gilmore,” “Rocky,” “Rocky II,” “Rocky III,” and “Creed.”
MICHAEL LEV, UA football and baseball reporter
The staff at The Athletic recently ranked the top 100 sports movies of all time, and my favorite, “Eight Men Out,” came in at No. 53. Say it ain’t so!
The 1988 film tells the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, who infamously threw the World Series that year and became known as the “Black Sox.” It’s based on Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book of the same name.
I since have come to learn that both the book and movie are rife with historical inaccuracies. I don’t care. What I like best about the movie is how genuine it feels. The baseball scenes are superb. Everyone looks as if they actually know how to throw, catch and hit a baseball. Nothing feels unrealistic or manufactured. Unlike, say, “The Natural,” there’s no Hollywood ending. (I like “The Natural” quite a bit, and I’m not sure how I would have felt if the movie had ended the way the book did. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well.)
The casting also is on point. Telling the story largely from the viewpoint of pure-of-heart third baseman Buck Weaver, played by John Cusack, is a masterstroke. Cusack is a Cubs fan, by the way. Talk about acting.
CAITLIN SCHMIDT, sports enterprise reporter
I was already a fan of “Friday Night Lights” the book when it was made into a movie, so I was instantly skeptical, since movies based on books are seldom as good. This movie broke that trend. With a deeply thoughtful cast and stellar direction by Peter Berg, the movie was so well done that I was able to overlook the creative liberties the filmmakers took in transitioning the true story from book to screen. It’s one of those movies that I own, but will also watch it on TV every time I see that it’s on.
The movie captures the emotions tied into high school football in a way that the book simply couldn’t, even though both are exceptional in their own right. It’s not just my favorite sports movie, but also one of my favorite movies overall. I’m such a big fan of both that while driving from Tucson to Atlanta several years ago, I took a detour to Odessa, Texas, so that I could drive by Permian High School. I could not pass up the opportunity to see for myself the home of the Panthers and their amazing 1988 season.
JUSTIN SPEARS, sports producer
“Friday Night Lights” for a number of reasons. Football is so important in Odessa, Texas, that the entire town shuts down on Friday nights. The Permian Panthers had All-State tail back Boobie Miles and were destined to win a state championship, but the star player suffered a season-ending knee injury after prematurely returning from his previous knee problem. The scene of Boobie crying on his Uncle’s shoulders after the doctor told him he couldn’t play for the remainder of the season still brings tears to my eyes.
Permian lucks its way into the state playoffs before running into a buzzsaw Dallas Carter team. This is what makes “Friday Night Lights” special: Permian doesn’t win. The movie ends with the good guys losing in the big game at the Astrodome, which is a great lesson for young athletes (and all people). Just because a great opportunity presents itself and a positive outcome is what’s expected, doesn’t mean it works out in the end.
RYAN FINLEY, sports editor
First of all, there are no “real” sports movies — just love stories, buddy pictures and rom-coms with some poorly-done sports sequences spliced in. (“Hoop Dreams” and “Ken Burns’ Baseball” are documentaries; for the sake of this answer, they don’t count). Not that love stories, buddy pictures and rom-coms are bad, mind you: “For Love of the Game,” a movie about a 40-year-old pitcher agonizing over his past mistakes while in the midst of the greatest game of his life, connects with me like no other sports movie I’ve ever seen.
I dare you to watch Kevin Costner’s Billy Chapel character “push the sun back into the sky and give us one last day of summer,” in the words of Vin Scully, and not weep. (Did I mention I turn 40 soon?).
ALEC WHITE, sports producer
My favorite sports movie is “The Sandlot.” There are so many great lines that I still repeat on a regular basis. “The Great Bambino!”, “You’re killi’n me, Smalls!”, “L-7 weenie” … just a classic film that I can enjoy at any time.
PJ BROWN, contributor
“A League of Their Own” — every time it’s on, I stop whatever I’m doing to watch it. It’s fun, with great characters that you root for and shows that if you have a good product, fans will watch. It’s good to see the support that these athletes got during war time. And, come on, it has one of the best lines in sports movie history: “There’s no crying in baseball.”
BRETT FERA, contributor
When I first started covering sports, the premise of being “neutral” and a “no cheering in the press box” edict desensitized me a bit. I still loved everything about the games, but ended up caring more about the moments or storylines than rooting for specific teams or individual athletes. That same logic holds true with sports movies. I watch them all, can recite almost any line from dozens of them, but I sincerely don’t think I have a favorite. Same thing – its individual moments that stand the test of time. Willie “Mays” Hayes flying in from the parking lot (at Tucson’s own Hi Corbett Field) in his pajamas in “Major League.” “Rudy” lighting a candle in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes on the Notre Dame campus. Lattimer getting his “Place at the Table” in “The Program.” The expletive-laden “Just wait ‘til next year!” culminating the chaos that was the original “The Bad News Bears”. But the scene I can’t get enough of, no matter how many times I’ve watched it: The “night game,” under the fireworks, to Ray Charles’ rendition of “America, The Beautiful” in “The Sandlot.”
JOHN MCKELVEY, contributor
“The Damned United.” It’s about a charismatic and controversial soccer manager in England who had unprecedented success with underdogs, but had a terrible tenure with one of the world’s powerhouses. Martin Sheen gives a fantastic acting performance, and the storyline is incredibly compelling even if you’re not a soccer fan. I know the typical answer “The Sandlot” or “Bull Durham,” which are both great, but this flick is pretty underrated.
BRYAN ROSENBAUM, contributor
I don’t particularly care for sports movies. Sure, my wife won’t change the channel whenever “Rocky” is on. And I liked “Creed.”
But outside of “Miracle,” the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, most sports movies are a little short on drama and a lot short on reality.
“Mr. Baseball” is definitely not the best sports movie of all-time.
Heck, it’s an average-at-best flick about an aging baseball player trying to salvage what’s left of his career in Japan, struggling to accept his new reality.
But, if you’re wondering why I’ve chosen this particular movie, it may have something to do with a childhood fondness for Tom Selleck, aka “Magnum P.I.”, wearing the Old English “D” Detroit Tigers cap.
Now ask yourself this: has anybody worn a baseball uniform better?
