Friday Top Five: Baseball Movies

Next Friday I will be MIA because I am heading up to Boston for the weekend to watch the Boston Red Sox play the New York Yankees. I'm pretty excited, which might be the biggest understatement of my life. But for this week's Top Five, I will be combining two of my favorite things - movies and baseball!

05. Fever Pitch (Farrelly Brothers, 2005)
This one is sort of just for me. I know it's not the best movie about baseball, but as a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, I can't help but absolutely love it. The premise is that teacher Ben (Jimmy Fallon) can get over his heartbreak after a sweet but failed attempt at romance with Lindsay (Drew Barrymore) simply because we, as Red Sox fans, get our heartbroken every year. Of course, this movie was filmed during the historic 2004 season where the Red Sox finally broke the curse and won the World Series after 86 years so they had to do some ending re-writes. This movie is like watching history being made again and again.

04. A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992)
As a girl who idolized her older brother who played baseball and was obsessed with baseball from a pretty early age, just imagine how much I loved this movie when it came out. Girls playing baseball!! I was probably 10 or 12 when I saw this movie so I think it had a pretty big influence on me at such an impressionable age. The whole cast is brilliant in their roles, even Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, who aren't typically the best actresses. But if you come for Tom Hanks and his hilarious, drunken manager performance, you are going to stay for the sister rivalry between Geena Davis and Lori Petty.

03. Eight Men Out (John Sayles, 1988)
Eight Men Out is the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who managed to win the World Series at the last minute despite promising some gamblers they would throw the series in order to make a few extra bucks. The truth is, baseball has a dark side that existed long before PED scandals and this movie completely entrances. All of the performances are absolutely fantastic. This movie stars a who's who of hot young actors from the late 80s including John Cusack, Charlie Sheen and, future Walking Dead Michael Rooker.

02. Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)
What do you get when you mix a super smart script from the best writer in the biz (Aaron Sorkin), a movie star performance from Brad Pitt, a star-making performance from Jonah Hill, and damn good directing? Well, you get Moneyball, the Oscar nominated movie from 2 years ago which is totally re-watchable and endlessly quotable. A must see!

01. Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988)
Not only is this the greatest sports movie of all time, but also Kevin Costner says things like this: "Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." Also, I am a full fledged member of the Church of Baseball.