By Ryan Ernst
Cincinnati Enquirer

Do you like movies? Do you like baseball? Do you like movies about baseball? Then check out our baseball movie guide from A to Z.

A is for A League of Their Own. Dress it up however you want, it's still girls playing baseball. There was a reason this league folded, correct?

B is for the Bad News Bears. What do you get when you mix an alcoholic manager, a tomboy pitcher, a foul-mouthed shortstop, a thug center fielder, an extremely overweight catcher and a "booger-eating moron" riding the bench? Just about the most lovable group of losers in Southern California!

C is for Kevin Costner. He has three solid baseball movies to his credit (For Love of the Game, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams). His presence alone makes a film legitimate.

D is for Crash Davis, Costner's character in Bull Durham, who offers us his thoughts on just about everything in this memorable-yet-edited-for-content soliloquy:

"I believe in the soul ... the hanging curveball, high fiber (and) good scotch. 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 ... opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

E is for Ed. No, not EDtv, Ed. We'll put it this way: Whoever wrote Ed makes whoever wrote EDtv look like Stephen Hawking. It is the worst baseball movie of all time. A monkey third baseman co-stars alongside Matt LeBlanc, though at times it's tough to distinguish the two.

F is for Field of Dreams. It's the movie that inspired thousands of American men to cut baselines and base pits into their lawns. Unfortunately, most American wives and mothers are not as cool as Ray's old lady.

G is for girl, which is what Tim Robbins and Brendan Fraser throw like in Bull Durham and The Scout, respectively. They're supposed to be big-league prospects? Phenoms even? Hello? Doesn't anyone realize they can't hit 60 on the jug gun?

H is for Hamilton "Ham" Porter, the chubby, redheaded catcher from The Sandlot. He was one of those kids that seemed like a 45-year-old man trapped in a kid's body. What acting chops! How did Patrick Renna get stood up on his date with Oscar?

I is for innocent, as in the final verdict in Eight Men Out, the story of the Black Sox scandal of 1919. The players were found innocent in a court of law, then banned for life from baseball. Huh?

J is for Jackie Earle Haley. He played Kelly Leak in all three Bad News Bears movies.

Check out this pick-up line from the man-child Mr. Leak:

"I got a Harley Davidson. Does that turn you on? Harley Davidson?"

How that girl stayed conscious after a line like that from Kelly Leak is truly beyond us.

K is for Keanu "Whoa" Reeves. In the 2001 release Hardball, his most memorable line was: "I'm blown away by your ability to show up." Was he talking to his rag-tag bunch of Little Leaguers or the poor saps who actually paid to see this movie?

L is for lollygagging. As in the scene from Bull Durham that includes manager "Skip" Riggins confronting his players in the shower and branding them all lollygaggers. The scene taught an entire generation of father/coaches how to correctly use the term in both its verb and noun form.

M is for Mr. Baseball starring Mr. Tom Selleck as an aging ballplayer exported to play in Japan. He doesn't speak the language; he doesn't understand the customs. Let the mustachioed hijinx ensue!

N is for The Natural. As far as ensemble casts go, this is the Big Red Machine of baseball movies. Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey and Wilford Brimley star in the primes of their careers.

O is for Oscar. Pride of the Yankees, the biography of Lou Gehrig starring Gary Cooper, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, making it by far the most critically acclaimed baseball movie of all-time.

P is for Pete Rose. Sure, a movie about Charlie Hustle's life recently fell through, but not many people know about his previous movie credit - a one-minute cameo as Ty Cobb in the 1991 made-for-TV movie Babe Ruth.

Q is for Dennis Quaid, star of 2002's The Rookie. It would be easy to say the story of Jim Morris, along with Quaid's performance, is entirely too corny, except for the fact that the script is almost entirely true.

R is for Rookie of the Year. Gary Busey IS ... Chet Steadman in 1993's fun-loving baseball comedy. What we wouldn't have given to be in the production meeting for this one:

Executive One: "OK, follow me here. What if a 12-year-old boy broke his arm, and when it healed, he could throw a baseball 100 mph and he joined the Cubs? And, what if his single mother were to fall for an aging ballplayer."

Executive Two: "Can Kevin Costner be that ballplayer?"

Executive One: "No, but Gary Busey sure can!"

Executive Two: "You're fired!"

S is for The Sandlot. The best part about this movie is searching for it on Amazon.com and reading customer reviews. One astute viewer began: "This movie is pure briliance (sic)." Another scribe: "It has some great moments ... the pool w/ the lifegaurd (sic) (really funny) ... Just writing this makes me want to watch it again!"

Just reading that makes us want to reach for the diktionary!

T is for themes. There are six themes that run through all baseball movies. That's it. Six. And most baseball movies have more than one intertwined.

They are the phenom, the based-on-a-true-story, the oddball-clubhouse comedy, the aging veteran, the stand-by-her-man gal and the manager-and-players-against-all-odds success story.

U is for Bob Uecker, who plays announcer Harry Doyle in Major League. Every line is a classic.

V is for Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn from Major League, played by Reds fan Charlie Sheen. During the restaurant scene, donned in a sleeveless dress shirt and the mandatory dress-code tie draped loosely around his neck, he serves up one of the classic baseball movie lines of all time: "I look like a banker in this."

W is for Wonderboy, the name of Roy Hobbs' bat in The Natural. It is baseball's version of Excalibur, only with a really cool logo.

X is for Major League X, as in 10, which inevitably will be made, inevitably will be very bad and inevitably will go straight to video. Look for Tim Robbins to co-star as the wacky, nearsighted pitching coach.

Y is for Damn Yankees. This is not a baseball movie. Do not be fooled - not by your wife, girlfriend, mother, etc. There is also a play by this name. Once again, it is not a baseball movie. Did you like West Side Story? We didn't think so.

Z is for Tony DanZZZZa, the star of Angels in the Outfield. When former manager Tommy Lasorda was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, he referred to Danza as "one of the great actors in the history of Hollywood." Take that, Gary Cooper. Maybe Lasorda could play the wacky, nearsighted pitching coach.

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