Scooter Chronicles

Marcia and I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly magazine. There is a small section devoted to stuff that they have on their web site EW.Com. The latest edition that showed up late last week told of their list of the Top 10 Movie Baseball Players. Being a fan of those types of movies, I had to post the list.

1. Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) in “Major League” (1989)
2. George “Buck” Weaver (John Cusack) in “Eight Men Out” (1988)
3. Jackie Robinson (himself) in “The Jackie Robinson Story” (1950)
4. Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins) in “Fear Strikes Out’ (1957)
5. Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) in “The Bad News Bears” (1976)
6. Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) in “The Natural” (1984)
7. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) in “Field of Dreams” (1989)
8. Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) in “Pride of the Yankees” (1942)
9. Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) in “A League of Their Own” (1992)
10. Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) and Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) in “Bull Durham” (1988)

I find some of these interesting picks. I can see why Ray Liotta’s Shoeless Joe was on there because you can’t exclude someone from “Field of Dreams”, quite possibly the best baseball movie of all-time. But I never pictured Shoeless Joe so confident off the field, or so well spoken. Then again, I don’t think D. B. Sweeney’s Shoeless Joe in “Eight Men Out” hit the mark either.

I was glad to see the inclusion of Cusack’s Buck Weaver from “Eight Men Out”. It showed Cusack could act, not just be funny or stupid, or both, as his roles before this had called for.

The obvious choice from the “Major League” movies was Rick Vaughn. However, I think Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross), and Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes) are unfairly lost in Vaughn’s shadow.

The fact that a player from the original “The Bad News Bears” is included gives this list credibility to me. I personally would have picked Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) myself, but Amanda will do.

And without a doubt, Roy Hobbs, Crash Davis, Nuke LaLoosh, Dottie Hinson, Jimmy Dugan, and Gary Cooper’s Gehrig had to be included. I actually kept flipping through saying under my breathe, “Crash better be on this list.” He still remains my favorite movie baseball player/character. He also has one of the best lines ever, which also happens to be the first line of his appearance in the movie. Robert Wuhl asks him who he is when he walks into the manager’s office, and Crash’s reply is, “I’m the player to be named later.”

I would then add two honorable mentions. The first is the late Trey Wilson. He played manager Joe Riggins in “Bull Durham”. His character was more prominent at the beginning of the film. But he was involved in one of the best scenes. See below.

Credit should go to Robert Wuhl in this scene, too.

The second honorable mention goes to Tom Selleck as Jack Elliot in “Mr. Baseball”. Not necessarily a great movie, or performance. But Selleck’s a Tigers’ fan, so I gotta give him some props. Also, Dennis Haysbert shows up in the movie too, this time as Max “Hammer” Dubois.