Top 10 Baseball Movies of All-Time (pt 3)

6. 61* (2001)

"He hit 40 homeruns last year, a lot of players would kill for that kind of "off" season"

This HBO movies was directed by Billy Crystal and starred Barry Pepper as Roger Maris, Thomas Jayne as Mickey Mantle, and Anthony Michael Hall as Whitey Ford.  It followed the story of the "M&M Boy's" 1961 chase to beat Babe Ruth's single season record of 60 home runs.  The Mick was everybody's favorite ballplayer, while Maris was a quiet newcomer to New York.  Despite being the league MVP in '60, the New York media buried Maris for his quiet demeanor and strict non-MickeyMantleness.  This movie showed an unflattering, and honest look at the "all-american" Mickey Mantle as a womanizing drunk with a mouth like a sailor, which plays an "Odd Couple" theme in contrast to Maris's ah-shucks, family-centric sense of morals.  Maris comes off as sweet and tragic while Mickey comes off as awesome and tragic.

5. The Sandlot (1993)

"Anyone who wants to be a can't-hack-it pantywaist who wears their mama's bra, raise your hand"

This movie would have been almost as awesome as "The Goonies" had it come out 7 years earlier.  Taking place in 1962, it follows 12 year-old Scotty Smalls as he moves to a new neighborhood in L.A. and befriends a group of kids who play small-ball in an empty lot.  They don't hit homeruns because over the outfield fence is a ferocious dog named Hercules, and they have only one ball.  One day Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez knocks the cover off the ball, so Scotty runs home and grabs his stepfather's ball that is autographed by "some girl" (Babe Ruth), which he promptly hits over the fence, into the dog's territory.  Fiascos ensue, and James Earl Jones appears as a former Negro League player, and tells us why baseball is good.