SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — I’m a movie buff. And this time of year, when I’m covering spring training and the Academy Awards draw near, I start thinking about my favorite baseball movies.
There some truly great baseball movies, and plenty of good ones. The films run the gamut, from the funny, bittersweet classic “Bull Durham,” to the romantic fable that is “The Natural,” to the laugh-out-loud bawdiness of “Major League,” to the Kleenex classic “Pride of the Yankees.” I’ve seen just about all of them. And yes, I even like “Fever Pitch,” despite the Red Sox theme.
Best baseball movie lists are ubiquitous and tend to stir a lot of passionate arguments. Baseball America, for instance, offers
But in honor of the Oscars they’ll be handing out Sunday, I’m going to look at baseball moves from a different angle. Call them the “Boscars.” The deeper I delved into this, the tougher it got to whittle down the nominees.
The envelopes, please:
Best performance by an actress in a leading role
Disclaimer: Aside from “A League of Their Own,” women tend to play supporting roles in baseball movies. So for the purposes of this column, I’m grouping the actresses into one category.
The nominees are: Geena Davis in “A League of Their Own”; Susan Sarandon in “Bull Durham”; Kim Basinger in “The Natural”; Glenn Close in “The Natural”; and Amy Madigan in “Field of Dreams.”
And the Boscar goes to … Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. Smart, sexy and funny, Sarandon’s Annie Savoy is the perfect compliment/foil to Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis and Tim Robbins’ Nuke LaLoosh.
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Best performance by an actor in a supporting role
Disclaimer: The number of great supporting performances in baseball movies is amazing. For instance, I don’t even include Robert Duvall’s sleazy sports writer, Max Mercy, from “The Natural.” It seems sacrilegious, but Duvall didn’t make the cut to the final five.
The nominees are: Robbins in “Bull Durham”; Tom Hanks in “A League of Their Own”; Wilford Brimley in “The Natural”; Harrison Ford in “42”; Bob Uecker in “Major League.”
And the Boscar goes to … Wilford Brimley in “The Natural.” He’s fantastically understated as crusty, hard-luck manager Pop Fisher.
“I shoulda been a farmer,” he says. Classic.
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Best performance by an actor in a leading role
The nominees are: Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees”; Costner in “Bull Durham”; Costner in “Field of Dreams”; Robert Redford in “The Natural”; and Walter Matthau in “The Bad News Bears.”
And the Boscar goes to … Kevin Costner in “Bull Durham.” He looks like a ballplayer, he plays like a ballplayer and he acts like a ballplayer. Coster was excellent in “Field of Dreams,” too, but his performance as Crash Davis, a career minor-league catcher, is authentic and unforgettable.
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Best baseball picture
The nominees are: “Bull Durham,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Natural,” “Moneyball” and “Major League.”
And the Boscar goes to … “Bull Durham.” It has everything you could want in a baseball movie. It’s funny, crass, touching, realistic and sentimental all at once. It’s not only my favorite baseball movie of all time, it also makes my top 10 list of all movies.
Crash Davis: “Yeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 21 days once — the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.”
So there you have my Boscars. I’m sure I snubbed one of your favorite movies or performances. That’s OK, we’re all entitled to our opinions.
Chew on this
• I tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to uniforms. I love the Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals and Indianapolis Colts threads. I cringe at the color combinations thrown together by Nike for the Oregon Ducks.
That said, I have to admit that I was intrigued by the new-age NFL helmets designed by graphic artist Dylan Young. Some of them are very far out, man.
• I’m not a collector, but a shelf in my home office is full of bobbleheads. I love them. So do a lot of you, apparently. “the bobblehead will continue its run as baseball’s greatest promotional item, as Major League Baseball teams will hand out at least 121 different bobbleheads this year.”
• “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” On this date in 1967, grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was born in Aberdeen, Wash.
Patrick Saunders: psaunders@denverpost.com or twitter.com/psaundersdp
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