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Here’s your link for the movie! It’s from a Strange Site, but most internet security experts consider it pretty safe (when it comes to collecting your data, IMDb is worse). It has no commercials, so no sync
issues! Sync issues are a pain on Movie Nights! Start the show at 7:30!
David S. Ward, who wrote 1973’s very successful The Sting, said he wanted to make this movie because he’d been a lifelong Cleveland fan, and the team had stunk for years. “They hadn’t finished within 10 games of first place in 20 years or something. So it had to be a comedy and that pretty much dictated the direction. I invented a group of misfit players who found a way to come together and get it done. That felt like the only way it would ever happen. We were a small market team. When we did have good players we would lose them to the New York Yankees of the world who could pay them what we couldn’t. That’s been the story of the Indians over the years.”
Yeah, and a few other teams, too.
I suspect you all know the plot. New owner Joe Pohlad Margaret Whitton wants to move the team to Miami, so she sells off every player who’s worth a bag of balls, in hopes the replacement players will all stink and Clevelanders won’t care if she moves the Browns to Baltimore Indians to Florida.
But this ragtag bunch of misfits might have something to say about the matter…
Written/directed by Ward. Starring Tom Berenger (Platoon), Corbin Bernsen (Psych), James Gammon (Nash Bridges), Rene Russo (Tin Cup), Charlie Sheen (L.A. County Courthouse), Wesley Snipes (White Men Can’t Jump), and Bob Uecker, R.I.P.
Interestingly, there was originally a different ending. In that ending, owner Whitton explains to ruff/gruff manager Gammon that she never intended to move the team to Florida. How it was all a ploy to motivate the players to win! You can see it in this YouTube clip:
Test audiences HATED it though, so a new ending was shot. I’m generally against the idea of random bozos in Los Angeles parking lots given veto power over movies, particularly complicated ones.
(Yes, that’s how studios picked test audiences, at least back then. Some person would approach you in a parking lot, and ask “would you be interested in seeing a free movie about subject X starring actors Y & Z?” If you said yes, you were asked if you worked for the media. I worked for my college newspaper, so I never got to be in a test audience. But I got asked a few times.)
Test audiences shouldn’t judge complex movies. Yet Major League is NOT a complex movie. So, in this caase, the test audiences were right! It’s better to keep the owner a villain! (Probably. I haven’t seen this in a long time.)
Besides, what kind of baseball owners have we seen since 1989? More owners who love the teams and want them to do well? Or more owners who simply want more public money in the form of new stadiums and will do anything to get it? Especially threatening to move? You all know which version is closer to reality.
In 2014, Topps put out a 25th-anniversary Major League card pack:
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Oh, and when they shot this, Charlie Sheen was roiding up to improve his fastball in the movie, until he said the drugs caused him to lose his temper. Sure, Charlie. Sure, it was the drugs.
Here’s your link again for the movie! Click your clicks at 7:30!
Here’s the upcoming schedule:
January 30: Benched (2018)
John C. McGinley and Garret Dillahunt star as two youth baseball coaches with very different approaches to coaching. Free on the Strange Site.
February 6: The Rookie (2002)
Not-yet-weird Dennis Quaid is a small-town schoolteacher who’s always dreamed of playing baseball. Maybe, just maybe, he might have a chance. Free on the Strange Site.
February 13: Back to the Future III (1990)
By request, and because I haven’t seen it since 1990 (when I enjoyed it a lot). Why haven’t I seen it since then? Well, there’s an embarrassing tale… Free on the Strange Site.
February 20: Moneyball (2011)
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, and I’m sure Billy Beane wishes he looked like Brad Pitt. Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as always. The Twins beat the A’s! Free on the Strange Site.
I’ve got some ideas for future ones if we do this more, and all movie suggestions are absolutely welcome & wanted!
