There's No Crying in Baseball

 “Just Thinking”

I saw a Reel on Instagram the other night, a couple of guys were asked to name the top 10 fictional baseball players. They did a great job, but that got me thinking that I wanted to elaborate on their list to include not only their players but some of the auxiliary players in baseball movie lore.

First of all, the guys that I saw were on a channel called Glue Guys Sport and here is their list, the top ten fictional baseball players 1) Roy Hobbs, The Natural 2) Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn, Major League 3) Benny the Jet, Sandlot 4) Crash Davis, Bull Durham 5) Steve Nebraska, The Scout 6) Jake Taylor, Major League 7) Willie Mays Hayes, Major League 8) Henry Rowengartner, Rookie of the Year 9) Stan Ross, Mr. 3000 10) Billy Chapel, For Love of the Game. It’s hard to argue with that list, Major League is well represented with three of the top ten and an awesome list of movies, I’m just thinking there are several more that need to be mentioned in the history of fictional baseball players and movies.

The Natural was Roy Hobbs, but there were a couple of other classic characters in the film, Bump Bailey who dies after crashing through the outfield fence and gets Wally Pipped by Hobbs. The Manager is Pop Fisher, and his assistant coach is Red Blow, the batboy Bobby Savoy and The Whammer is a fictionalized version of Babe Ruth. In Bull Durham Crash Davis is a veteran catcher brought in to mentor young pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh. Major League had three spots in the top ten, but it did not include Pedro Cerrano a slugger who practices voodoo to help his bat come alive. Field of Dreams featured Shoeless Joe Jackson who was a real person, who was also featured in the movie Eight Men Out, but did have a staring fictional character Moonlight Graham a player who only played one game in the majors. In The Sandlot Ham Porter “The Great Hambino” was a funny, trash-talking catcher with a big personality. In Brewster’s Millions, there was Monte Brewster and his best friend and catcher Spike Nolan who play for the Hackensack Bulls.

One of the most emotional baseball films ever made was Bang the Drum Slowly, the movie was touching, but the baseball scenes were terrible and for me did take away from the movie. Contrarily, Mr. Baseball, Bull Durham, For Love of the Game and Trouble with the Curve, featured quality baseball action that enhanced already good baseball movies.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the great baseball movie A League of Their Own, set during World War II, a movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Here are some of the key characters: Manager Jimmy Dugan and players, Dottie Hinson, Kit Keller, Mae "All the Way Mae" Mordabito, Betty "Spaghetti" Horn, Ellen Sue Gotlander and Alice "Skeeter" Gaspers.

I have some vivid memories of a couple baseball movies that I watched as a kid that had huge impact on me, The Pride of the Yankees, Dam Yankees, Angles in the Outfield and The Babe Ruth Story.

Let’s not forget the greatest fictional players of all time, Who’s on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third.

Let me know what you think.

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@ChuckBarberini - #ChuckBarberiniRealEstate - @ChuckBarberiniRealEstate

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