The Baseball Movie Countdown, 15-11
The countdown continues and I touch on some recent MLB storylines.
Happy Friday, everyone. Before we get to the next five baseball movies in our countdown, I thought it would be good to catch up a little bit on some stuff that has caught my eye.
I don’t think so
Philadelphia beat Minnesota in the Field of Dreams game on Thursday, and while it’s always kind of fun to see baseball in a cornfield, I do kind of wonder if this ship has sailed. I mean, I love Field of Dreams — putting me at odds with some pretty prominent haters out there — but doing this baseball movie countdown has made me wonder: Shouldn’t MLB honor other awesome baseball movies as well? I mean, how about a game in Rockford to honor A League of Their Own and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League? How about the Mets wear New York Knights uniforms and use bats with lightning bolts on them to celebrate The Natural? How about a ballgame in Durham with all the fun minor-league stuff for Bull Durham?
However you feel about it, though, I think this MLB.com headline is worth a mention:
I don’t think the Phils were asking that, no.
Um. What?
The excellent Britt Ghiroli wrote a revealing — or at least, as revealing as possible — story about Buster Posey and his fairly disastrous early reign as President of Baseball Ops for the San Francisco Giants. You want to be fair — it’s only been two years. But, I mean, it’s obviously a mess, at least right now.
The story’s focus revolves around how Posey’s struggles to run a baseball team with no experience threaten his legacy as a beloved World Series hero and Hall of Fame player … but the stuff that interested me was how out of his depth he seems. I’m talking about his own words. There are numerous examples, but the one that stands out to me came when Posey talked about whether or not he will bring back rookie manager Tony Vitello, the one guy in the organization who seems more out of his depth than Posey.
The story makes clear — Posey might not have a choice. The Giants are still paying Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin to NOT manage the team. But it is Posey’s defense of Vitello that boggles the mind.
“I look at the job that Tony and his staff are doing,” he told Ghiroli, “I don’t have any reason not to believe that what they’re doing isn’t gonna get us to a place where we’re playing more consistent winning baseball.”
Can someone please diagram that sentence?
He does not have any reason to not believe that they’re not gonna get the team to a place where they’re playing consistent baseball?
I’ve always liked Buster Posey. I hope he succeeds. I don’t think he will succeed.
Or, maybe to put it more plainly. I have no reason to not believe he will not not untie the Giants’ knots and lead the team to Knotts Berry Farm where the memory of Don Knotts and a few tasty not knots will not deter them.
The Power of Payton
You already know that this Boston Red Sox season has been one of the weirdest in the annals of baseball history. On June 24, they were 32-46 and buried in last place in the American League East, 15 1/2 games behind the leader. They were a complete mess. Their young star Roman Anthony was hurt and lost. Veteran Trevor Story looked like he’d aged 30 years in one offseason. Newly arrived Caleb Durbin couldn’t hit the ball out of the infield, and Jarren Duran was swinging at pitches only he could see, and the Red Sox were beginning to lose faith that one-time superstar prospect Marcelo Mayer would ever turn out.
The crazy thing was that, even then, the Red Sox were getting great pitching. But the lineup was so bad, it didn’t matter, and there seemed no reason to believe the lineup would get any better.
Boston then won 32 of their next 37 games, one of the greatest winning runs ever.
And look, there are a lot of reasons for it … but I’m giving 43.6% of the credit to Payton Tolle. Only a small part of that credit is about his pitching, though since June 24 the Red Sox have won eight of his nine starts and Tolle has a 2.84 ERA with a 66-13 strikeout-to-walk.
But Tolle’s impact is so much bigger than that.
It’s a vibes thing. You’ve probably seen this video of when Tolle found out that he was going to the big leagues …
Videos like that are often touching and sweet, but this one feels extra special and extra sweet because, by gosh, THAT’S the wonder and splendor of Payton Tolle.
Here’s Payton Tolle on his crazy balk: “There was no brain there!”
Here’s Payton Tolle jumping after a high bouncer:
Here’s Payton Tolle being Payton Tolle — you often see him compared to Ron Swanson, but I think he’s about four Parks and Rec characters rolled into one. How happy do you think that makes Michael Schur feel?
In any case, I am a big believer in team identity. This cuts against my statistical side, but I really do believe that sports teams are better when they have an identity, when they are about something. Payton Tolle, almost by himself, has made the Red Sox about fun, which is just incredible considering how un-fun this team was for so long.
So, once again, here’s what we are doing — we are counting down the greatest (and not-so-greatest) baseball movies ever made. I sent out a massive email to several dozen of my friends and asked them to rank as many baseball movies as they would like. Some sent in just one. Others sent in as many as 64.
In any case, we put together a massive list of the movies … we have seventy-five of them in all, and we’re going to count them down all the way up to No. 1. If I pull off the timing (unlikely), then we will announce the greatest baseball movie ever made on August 20, which is the day Mike Schur and I will be at the Aero Theater in Los Angeles to introduce and talk about “A League of Their Own” (tickets here).
You can read Part 1 here — Nos. 75-56.
For the final 15, I’m going with a straight ranking. I’m going to follow the advice of voter and Brilliant Reader Daryl Morey and use the Condorcet Method, which matches up every movie head-to-head with the other 14, based on the voters’ rankings.
And here we go:
No. 15: Eephus (2024)
Condorcet W-L: 0-14
The people who Eephus on their ballots absolutely loved it … but only a few people did, which is why it’s ranked here. Comedy writer Megan Amram put it at No. 3 on her list and called it “a beautiful little movie about masculinity that does so much with so little.” Ellen Adair put it at No. 5 and wrote, “I almost ranked this higher as it is less well known; a perfect film in every way.”
I absolutely love Eephus, but I get why it didn’t appear on more ballots. It’s unlike any baseball movie ever made. It’s small and sweet and not about a game-winning home run or a broad villain or great baseball. It’s not even about good baseball. It’s about a bunch of out-of-shape middle-aged guys getting together in a small New England town for one more baseball game at the local park, Soldiers Field. They’re about to tear down the park to build a school. I love that choice, by the way — nobody thinks they should not tear down the park to BUILD A SCHOOL. This isn’t about the costs of progress or anything like that.
This also isn’t about the characters changing, evolving, learning something about themselves.
Nope. It’s just about men playing a baseball game played at a local park before it gets demolished.
And it’s beautiful. And it’s slow. And it’s tantalizing. And it’s funny. Like the Eephus pitch.
No. 14: Everybody Wants Some (2016)
