The Kid from Left Field

I know it's only a fantasy film but, still, if you know the slightest thing about baseball this movie can be annoying at times because ballplayers would NOT act like this. Even worse, Major League players wouldn't be this inept, to begin with. These guys couldn't make a Little League team, and they are playing professional baseball??? Come on...how much are we supposed to swallow here?!!

Listen.....it's a nice story and a good-natured film, but it's just too far-fetched. However, I can some non-baseball fans enjoying it, or older folks enjoying this for the pure nostalgia of seeing some baseball back 50 years ago. I like that part, myself, and appreciate a movie with some sentimentality and sweetness to it, which this does. I also like Dan Dailey, who plays the boy's father. Billy Chapin is likable as the kid, too....so what I am crying about?

It's just that no ballclub is going to employ (or even listen to) some little kid, even if it is secretly coming from his knowledgeable dad. Maybe I've watched too many Steven Spielberg movies. He always portrays kids as smarter than adults, which is ludicrous. I hate to see the same in a classic-era film in which writers had more sense than the twisted politically-correct morons of today.

The title role of The Kid From Left Field is played by Billy Chapin from a whole family of juvenile actors. He's a baseball crazed kid who gets to live the dream of any kid like that, he gets to manage a major league ball club. More important than that, he's a success at it.

Of course it's not all him by any means. He comes by his baseball smarts through Dan Dailey his father who know is a peanut vendor in the Bison ballpark. But Dailey was once a former big league player who missed his big chance because of an ungovernable temper and an undisciplined nature. A sadder and wiser Dailey knows it and now is a vendor for the team he used to play for.

Young Chapin becomes a bat boy and then gets to giving advice, good advice to the players, but that undermines manager Richard Egan's authority. He gets the kid fired, but then Egan gets fired and young Chapin realizes a dream.

You know how this film is going to end, every cliché that is involved in a baseball film is used here. Still The Kid From Left Field is a nice family picture with eternal appeal. Such folks as Lloyd Bridges, Fess Parker, and Bob Hopkins as Bison players, Ray Collins as the owner and Anne Bancroft as his secretary all perform admirably.

Best scene in the film is when manager Chapin takes over an argument from player Bridges with an umpire and gets thrown out of the game. But Billy Martin and Leo Durocher were not picked up by the seat of the pants deposited in their dugouts by an umpire.

The Kid From Left Field was remade more than two decades later with Robert Guillaume and Gary Coleman taking over the parts that Dailey and Chapin had. I've not seen it as yet, but it will have to go some to beat the charm of the original.

Jack Sher wrote this undemanding feel-good baseball comedy which drips with sentiment but isn't insufferable about it. Former major league ballplayer, now a single dad living on a slim salary hawking fresh roasted peanuts at the ballpark, gives his son invaluable player-tips once the kid becomes a bat-boy for the Bisons. The youngster passes his father's advice on to the teammates (along with some of his own baseball savvy) and soon the team is winning every game. Original sports entry for families is nearly an anomaly for the genre; the screenplay doesn't resort to heavenly assistance or wild gimmickry to get the team to the winners' circle, although little Billy Chapin is briefly appointed the team's manager. The pacing only drops off in the romantic subplot between 'over-the-hill' 36-year-old ballplayer Lloyd Bridges and secretary Anne Bancroft. Otherwise a very likable film, not sharply directed or incisively written, but entirely pleasant. Remade for TV in 1979. **1/2 from ****

'The Kid From Left Field' is a wonderful baseball film made in the early fifties and breathes the nostalgia of that time period. Child actor Billy Chapin becomes a batboy for the woeful Bisons (a copy of the old St. Louis Browns) and proceeds to inform the players of how they can correct their individual problems. Unbeknownst to the team, Chapin's wisdom is from his father, a washed-up player who has become a peanut vendor and lacks confidence and courage - in spite of his obvious baseball knowledge. Pretty soon, Chapin becomes the nine year old manager of the team with dramatic results that bind father to son; you can't help but root for the Bisons! A baseball fantasy - but filled with much innocence and charm. Surprisingly, this movie has never made it to VHS or DVD. I loved it as a kid - equally as an adult!

Great actors, mediocre movie. The premise of this movie has been used in many movies. You know, where a team is slumping terribly and along comes some 'magical' external influence to change it all around (eg. Major League). The problem with the screenplay of this movie is how they depicted the teams' slump, with balls rolling through infielder's legs, dropped easy fly balls, and batters clueless as to their hitting slumps. And worst of all was when the outfielder had his glove out to catch a fly ball and the ball hit him square in the forehead. Good for laughs, but jeeeez, these guys are MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS. But the KID solves the problems of these major league players (more fantasy). Fun to watch anyway, but only got my 5/10.