My father didn't grow up in this country so baseball was alien to him. He, like Joe's dad, preferred different, more kinetic sports, mainly soccer and tennis. He also had me in his 50s, so we didn't have as much time to play sports together. Still, as an American-born kid I loved baseball, and while he didn't get it, he supported my interests. He drove me to Little League games, bought me gloves, balls and bats (and taught me how to burn my name into the bat using a coat hanger and a stove). He also took me to a baseball card show where Mickey Mantle was signing autographs. My dad didn't know who Mickey Mantle was, and the line was insanely long, but he knew I wanted to get my ball signed so he got on the line with me and made sure I got my autograph.
He passed in 2002, but every time I see that ball, I think of him, and how much he loved me and all that he did to ensure my happiness. He wasn't a baseball fan, but the game still helps keep us close in a way.
I cry everytime with this movie. But it's not the end scene. It's the one where Moonlight saves the daughter from the hotdog and then can't go back on the field. :sob:
Is it wrong that I don't have strong feeling about Field of Dreams? It's an OK movie, I understand why people love it and why they hate it, I just don't care that much about it.
My dad played college ball and some semi-pro before joining the army, getting married, and quickly becoming adult. That's what people did back then. I found a trophy in the basement a few year's back... he was named the best high school ballplayer in the state in his senior year.
I was a headstrong, shallow jerk as a college kid, like many college kids before and since. My dad and I fought all the time though one of the few things we could always talk about was baseball, and we had only just begun to heal the fractures in our relationship when he died (strangely, during the 1998 home run chase). I was still a young man and never got a chance to say I'm sorry, and he never got a chance to teach his grand-daughter to field a grounder.
So, let's just say FIELD OF DREAMS will always feel oddly specific to me. It's mawkish sentimentality that closely mirrors my own life. And if you can't relate to the final scene of wanting to go through all of that just to play catch with your dad one time, then... I don't understand you at all.
Those are the ones I'll always watch if I find them on TV and I regularly enjoy. Field of Dreams is solid. Kevin Costner can do no wrong when it comes to baseball movies.
Thank you. For Love of the Game is my all time favorite baseball movie (even though my favorite team is the opposition), but I find very few people who agree.
I understand the cynics, but if you grew up in a baseball family, I don't know how you don't choke up on the last lines of the film (and the crack in Kevin Costner's voice when he says it), especially if your dad is no longer with you. Easily top 10 for me - probably top 5.
Also, ended an argument (correctly, in my opinion) I had with college friends over whether the "correct" phrase is "play catch" or "have a catch".
I don't think there's a correct answer, I think it's a regional thing. I'd never heard "have a catch" until the movie, in Ohio it's "play catch." (It's also pop, not soda, and you don't stand ON line, you stand IN line.)
I consider myself a realist and a cynic, and yet I love this movie. Always have, always will. And since my father left this earth, I am a blubbering mess every time I see the last scene. Oh, and the writer who lists Bad News Bears at #1? I wonder if he’s watched it since 1976. That is truly a movie that hasn’t aged well, so I’d take any of his opinions with a grain of salt.
Well argued - but I'm missing the part of human DNA that would allow me to like the movie. And I'm a sucker for father-son (in general, parent-child) stories. The W.P. Kinsella short story is very good though. Two things, then. 1. Please consider writing about Major League being left off the list, and 2. Nick Offerman's critique of the movie on that PosCast is one of the hall of fame moments in PosCast history!
Sometimes it's simply it's the wish that life could be that crazy and wonderful that gives us the hope to go on. I, for one, prefer to think that it can. The movie is absolutely a top ten.
Thanks again, Joe. I re watch Field of Dreams for the same reason I re-read Band the Drum Slowly every couple of years (I prefer the book to the movie.)
Life is hard - but baseball (or the IDEA of baseball) makes it better.
Field of Dreams is a disgracefully terrible movie ...especially as it relates to baseball...but really for being such a dull and insipid movie.
Field of Dreams rules. Even more than fruit pie, I’d have to say. My number one hands down.
My father didn't grow up in this country so baseball was alien to him. He, like Joe's dad, preferred different, more kinetic sports, mainly soccer and tennis. He also had me in his 50s, so we didn't have as much time to play sports together. Still, as an American-born kid I loved baseball, and while he didn't get it, he supported my interests. He drove me to Little League games, bought me gloves, balls and bats (and taught me how to burn my name into the bat using a coat hanger and a stove). He also took me to a baseball card show where Mickey Mantle was signing autographs. My dad didn't know who Mickey Mantle was, and the line was insanely long, but he knew I wanted to get my ball signed so he got on the line with me and made sure I got my autograph.
He passed in 2002, but every time I see that ball, I think of him, and how much he loved me and all that he did to ensure my happiness. He wasn't a baseball fan, but the game still helps keep us close in a way.
Amen brother. I cry every time.
I cry everytime with this movie. But it's not the end scene. It's the one where Moonlight saves the daughter from the hotdog and then can't go back on the field. :sob:
Is it wrong that I don't have strong feeling about Field of Dreams? It's an OK movie, I understand why people love it and why they hate it, I just don't care that much about it.
My dad played college ball and some semi-pro before joining the army, getting married, and quickly becoming adult. That's what people did back then. I found a trophy in the basement a few year's back... he was named the best high school ballplayer in the state in his senior year.
I was a headstrong, shallow jerk as a college kid, like many college kids before and since. My dad and I fought all the time though one of the few things we could always talk about was baseball, and we had only just begun to heal the fractures in our relationship when he died (strangely, during the 1998 home run chase). I was still a young man and never got a chance to say I'm sorry, and he never got a chance to teach his grand-daughter to field a grounder.
So, let's just say FIELD OF DREAMS will always feel oddly specific to me. It's mawkish sentimentality that closely mirrors my own life. And if you can't relate to the final scene of wanting to go through all of that just to play catch with your dad one time, then... I don't understand you at all.
Bad News Bears? Field of Dreams is crap, but Bad News Bears is number one? Not in my universe. In my universe, it’s just the opposite.
Bad News Bears is the best partly because it's entirely unsentimental.
This is the West, Sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Kevin Costner baseball movies are all good IMO
My top 10:
1. For Love of the Game
2. Bull Durham
3. Major League
4. A League of Their Own
5. Field of Dreams
6. The Sandlot
7. 61*
8. Little Big League
9. Major League II
10. Moneyball
Those are the ones I'll always watch if I find them on TV and I regularly enjoy. Field of Dreams is solid. Kevin Costner can do no wrong when it comes to baseball movies.
Thank you. For Love of the Game is my all time favorite baseball movie (even though my favorite team is the opposition), but I find very few people who agree.
I understand the cynics, but if you grew up in a baseball family, I don't know how you don't choke up on the last lines of the film (and the crack in Kevin Costner's voice when he says it), especially if your dad is no longer with you. Easily top 10 for me - probably top 5.
Also, ended an argument (correctly, in my opinion) I had with college friends over whether the "correct" phrase is "play catch" or "have a catch".
I don't think there's a correct answer, I think it's a regional thing. I'd never heard "have a catch" until the movie, in Ohio it's "play catch." (It's also pop, not soda, and you don't stand ON line, you stand IN line.)
I consider myself a realist and a cynic, and yet I love this movie. Always have, always will. And since my father left this earth, I am a blubbering mess every time I see the last scene. Oh, and the writer who lists Bad News Bears at #1? I wonder if he’s watched it since 1976. That is truly a movie that hasn’t aged well, so I’d take any of his opinions with a grain of salt.
Well argued - but I'm missing the part of human DNA that would allow me to like the movie. And I'm a sucker for father-son (in general, parent-child) stories. The W.P. Kinsella short story is very good though. Two things, then. 1. Please consider writing about Major League being left off the list, and 2. Nick Offerman's critique of the movie on that PosCast is one of the hall of fame moments in PosCast history!
"He plays an Iowa farmer. He wears no belt." I could listen to Nick Offerman say that for an eternity.
Which episode had the Offerman thing?
Re: #2 -- yes! Now I have to go back and re-listen to that PosCast.
Search the archives for the “Major League” article.
Sometimes it's simply it's the wish that life could be that crazy and wonderful that gives us the hope to go on. I, for one, prefer to think that it can. The movie is absolutely a top ten.
Thanks again, Joe. I re watch Field of Dreams for the same reason I re-read Band the Drum Slowly every couple of years (I prefer the book to the movie.)
Life is hard - but baseball (or the IDEA of baseball) makes it better.
And the hits just keep on coming. Happy Father’s Day, Joe.