I love Field of Dreams. It makes me cry, but it has too much existential shit to be the best baseball movie, just like For the Love of the Game has too much love story in it, and The Natural is more about the battle between good and evil.
Moneyball is a better baseball movie from a making the sausage standpoint, but Bull Durham is the best baseball movie. The conversations on the mound, teeing up your own teammate for a comeuppance (run, dummy!), never hit someone with your pitching hand, getting a rainout in a drought, the psyche of the manager (scare'em, they're kids), the reverence for The Show (you hit white baseballs at batting practice) and the tender interpersonal (the rose goes in the front). To steal a line from For the Love of the Game, it's perfect.
I do love Trouble with the Curve, as it highlights the difference between baseball people and the bean counters/nerds. It's sort of the anti-Moneyball.
Moneyball is a better baseball movie from a making the sausage standpoint, but Bull Durham is the best baseball movie. The conversations on the mound, teeing up your own teammate for a comeuppance (run, dummy!), never hit someone with your pitching hand, getting a rainout in a drought, the psyche of the manager (scare'em, they're kids), the reverence for The Show (you hit white baseballs at batting practice) and the tender interpersonal (the rose goes in the front). To steal a line from For the Love of the Game, it's perfect.
I do love Trouble with the Curve, as it highlights the difference between baseball people and the bean counters/nerds. It's sort of the anti-Moneyball.

