The New York Post's Kyle Smith published yesterday his list of the 10 greatest baseball movies. It was, in a word, wrong. It was, in several words, horribly, totally, and completely wrong. You can check it out here. Smith's list is so wrong I was, off the top of my head, able to rattle off three films that didn't make his cut that are better than literally every single film on his horribly, totally, and completely wrong list.
In order, those three films are:
1. Field of Dreams
"One constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball." Field of Dreams isn't a movie about baseball. It's a movie about America. It's about the traditions and the wonder and the magic that surrounds the national past time. It's a movie about fathers and sons and redemption. Is it a bit schmaltzy, a bit Capraesque? Of course it is. But you know know what? Capra works. There has been a revisionist movement in recent years to denigrate Field of Dreams, to say it's hippie-dippie agitprop. This is silliness: Field of Dreams is America, fullstop. It's also worth noting that Field of Dreams contains the one cinematic moment during which every American male is allowed to shed a tear. It's a simple line, one whose mere utterance completely out of context can bring a sheen to the eye of even the saltiest, most masculine man: "You wanna have a catch?" Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel.
2. The Sandlot
If Field of Dreams is about what it means to be an American (and it is), then The Sandlot is about what it means to an American kid. Summers off and dirty corner lots and throwing up chaw at the carnival, man. Not to mention the three Bs: baseball, bros, and babes. Of the three films that debuted during the 15-month golden age of kid-themed baseball flicks—The Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, and Little Big League—this one holds up the best.
3. Major League
The funniest film about baseball ever made—and, arguably, one of the funniest films about sports ever made—Major League posits an alternate universe in which pluck and grit are able to overcome little things like money and talent and number-crunching. It's like the anti-Moneyball.
Speaking of Moneyball, it is a complete mystery how one could compose a list of the 10 greatest baseball films of all time that includes that remarkably okay picture and leaves off each of the greats above. Call Kyle Smith's office and ask what the national past time ever did to him to merit such disrespect.