By TODD TRAUB
Leader sports editor
I caught some grief from my buddies in the Dickey-Stephens Park pressbox when I sashayed in for Wednesday night’s doubleheader between Arkansas and Tulsa.
Apparently the guys were miffed at me because I had the foresight not to show up and sit through rain delays, and the ultimate postponements, on Monday and Tuesday.
I did as all men do, I pointed at my friends and laughed at their misfortune.
Rain delays can sometimes be excruciating — the Travelers
waited four hours plus to resume a game last season — but sometimes they can be mercifully short.
Given the severity of the recent weather, Arkansas general manager Pete Laven didn’t wait very long to postpone the Monday and Tuesday games, one of which was made up in Wednesday’s doubleheader.
With so little baseball to write about recently it seems like a good time to introduce my version of that old television time-killer “Rainout Theater.” Instead of discussing baseball games, how about we talk about some baseball movies?
Everyone has their favorites, and there are some films that are almost universally regarded as the best baseball movies made. My short list includes a couple of those and a couple of personal favorites.
First, “Bull Durham,” the top choice of most baseball fans because it offers the most accurate depiction of minor league baseball — at least as it was in the 1980s — and the most spot-on representation of the game itself.
Kevin Costner is a natural as left-hand-hitting catcher Crash Davis and the mound meeting scenes and Costner’s interaction with Nuke LaLoosh, the pitching phenom played by Tim Robbins, are hilarious.
But the film has a couple strikes against it. Robbins’ pitching delivery isn’t fooling anyone, it’s every bit as awkward as Costner’s swing is smooth, and then Nuke is called up to the big leagues — from Class A ball.
That just doesn’t happen. Most minor leaguers at least put in a stint at Class AA first, and certainly one with Nuke’s wildness, a major point in the film, would not be considered major league-ready.
On to “The Natural,” a movie that is just beautiful to look at.
From the glowing cinematography — in which every scene looks like it was shot in early morning or late afternoon — to the ancient hulk of a stadium, to the New York Knights’ baggy uniforms to the way star Robert Redford wears his fedora, this film brings the eye candy.
Critics have complained that the film’s climax is a departure from the heartbreaking ending of Bernard Malamud’s dark novel, but that isn’t my complaint.
In the scene at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where the Knights are playing the host Cubs, Redford hits a game-ending homer. He shatters the scoreboard clock, circles the bases, his teammates congratulate him and everyone gets up to leave.
Except, the game is IN Chicago. Why don’t the Cubs get their last at-bats? They’re the Cubs, so they would have gone three-up, three-down, but still.
That’s a strike against “The Natural.”
On to “Eight Men Out,” which tells the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, or “Black Sox” as they were dubbed after eight players were banned from baseball for conspiring with gamblers to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
The old ballparks and dirty flannel uniforms have that great, jazz age look, and the snappy rhythms of the dialogue also ring true. The sympathetic stories of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver, who apparently played their hearts out but were blackballed for keeping quiet about their teammates’ actions, give the film its emotional heart.
This is an enjoyable movie but there appears to be one technical mistake.
During a Series game in Cincinnati, one of the conspirators, Chick Gandil, slaps an excuse-me single through the drawn-in infield to score Weaver from third in extra innings. The street urchins listening on a makeshift radio back in Chicago celebrate, but again, shouldn’t the Reds get their last at-bats?
That’s a strike.
So, for my money the best baseball movie is the original “Bad News Bears.” Profane and gritty, the film tells the story of a rag-tag group of little leaguers who become competitive under their drunken coach played by Walter Matthau.
The young actors, led by Tatum O’Neal as the pitcher, are engaging, and the movie takes a hard look at the harm that can be caused to young athletes by meddling, over-competitive parents and adults.
Plus, the movie finds a way to make the ending happy without taking the easy way out.
Besides that, it takes place in Southern California, where it usually doesn’t rain.
