The greatest baseball films of all time

By Joseph Boo
Diversions Editor

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Although baseball was our national pastime, and movies have been a part of Americana, there are few great baseball movies. It's not for a lack of effort, though. Here are the top 10 greatest baseball movies of all time:

10. "Damn Yankees"
Stanley Donen's colorful, yet uneven adaptation of the hit Broadway musical is on the list because the source material is one of many great baseball stories. The musical numbers were Oscar-nominated and very lively.
9. "Bang the Drum Slowly"
One of the saddest sports films around, this movie stars Robert DeNiro as a minor-league ballplayer and Vietnam War veteran. He is stricken with Hodgkin's disease and confronts his mortality as he continues the season.
8. "Eight Men Out"
John Sayles, one of the most anti-authoritative filmmakers, made this movie about the Black Sox Scandal, where eight members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers and threw the 1919 World Series. Detached to a fault, it's good in showing how even the trusted heroes can break your heart.
7. "Woman of the Year"
The first Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn movie, this film is about a sportswriter (Tracy) who falls for a snooty foreign correspondent (Hepburn). They both have to cover a baseball game that proves to be the ultimate equalizer, for it brings Hepburn down to an even level with Tracy.
6. "Bad News Bears"
The quintessential 1970s baseball movie - subversive, foul-mouthed and funny. Walter Matthau plays the cranky manager of an awful Little League team who, in a semi-Cinderella story, takes on the bigger and better Yankees. The innocence of youth baseball is hilariously and shockingly deflated.
5. "A League of Their Own"
A hilarious film with a subtle emotional undertone. The movie, about a women's baseball league that formed during World War II, specifically focuses on one team - the Rockford Peaches. It's not as deep as one would want it to be in terms of exploring sociological subject matters, but you end up really caring about the characters.
4. "Field of Dreams"
Phil Alden Robinson creates a poetic love song to baseball. Kevin Costner plays an Iowan farmer who hears a voice inspiring him to build a baseball field in the middle of his farm. His love of baseball eventually leads to a reconciliation with his father during one of the most touching games of catch ever played.
3. "The Natural"
Most people will vote this the greatest baseball film of all time, but it is a very sappy and overtly sentimental movie. Nevertheless, the quiet and dreamy nature of the film leaves the audience floating until the end, where the monstrous home run and the famous score punctuates one of the most famous scenes in movie history.
2. "The Pride of the Yankees"
One of the most profitable movie in MGM history, the film stars Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in Gehrig's biography. The movie glosses over the few faults in Gehrig's life, but it's a touching love story between Gehrig, his wife and baseball that culminates in Gehrig's famous retirement speech.
1. "Bull Durham"
Ron Shelton's first sports film is the best baseball comedy ever. Kevin Costner is a grizzled old veteran on a Triple A team who has a testy relation with a hot-shot phenomenon played by Tim Robbins. Both of them get testy when Susan Sarandon seduces them. Simple touches, like the players' setting the sprinklers to rain out a game or the conversations made on the mound, are classics.