Les Indians

... in this great ensemble film about the underdog, from several perspectives, and it's my favorite sports film even though I don't even like baseball. Being a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, and given the team's dilemma for the past thirty years, I definitely feel for the city of Cleveland.

As for the plot, Rachel Phelps is the ex-showgirl widow of the owner of the Cleveland Indians, and as such she has inherited the team. The first day of the new season she comes in with a puzzling roster for spring training - A bunch of has-beens and never-will-be's. She later confides in GM Charlie Donovan that she is deliberately trying to build a team that doesn't just lose - it's been doing that for 34 years - but finishes dead last, with attendance so poor that by contract she is allowed to break her lease with the city and move the team to Florida.

At that point the movie's focus moves to the jug band of players she recruited, how they work together, and how some of them just rub each other the wrong way. At first it looks like Rachel Phelps's plan will be a success, but how would the team react if they knew? Watch and find out.

It's one of the most quotable movies out there and provides genuine tension at the end as you really WANT these guys to win. It gives off such energy. I wasn't a huge fan of the romantic subplot involving Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) trying to win back his ex-wife because it felt a little forced, but I did appreciate that it gave him some character development.

Charlie Sheen's "Wild Thing" Ricky Vaughn is iconic, the writing is brilliant , and it gives us a beautiful story of a bunch of ragtag misfits coming together to prove their individual and collective worth.

As you might know, Baseball is not big in Germany. Hardly anybody knows or understands the rules. People watch soccer here. Basketball gets bigger. But Baseball? No.

So this movie, which many of my friends watched as well, was my first contact with this interesting sport. Of course, it is a fairy tale. Of course, the underdog won't get that big that it will beat everybody and win the championship. Or will it?

Sports history tells us different. The story is the same in every sport. Just two years ago, a team just promoted from second division won the German soccer championship!

This movie depicts the glorious story of a bunch of outsiders and underachievers who finally win some games. And it is told in such a wonderful manner that you can't but root for them on their way out of the slumps. Yes! It is a simple story! But the characters are wonderful, the wisecracking Harry Doyle incredibly funny and the finals... well... no spoilers here.

My most favorite moment is when oldtimer pitcher Harris is replaced by Charlie Sheens character in the finals. In the first games of the season, some die-hard fans had given Sheen the nickname "Wild thing" and sang the famous song. Now, the whole crowd is chanting this song as Sheen steps onto the field to pitch his largest enemy. This scene always gives me goosebumps. It is splendid.

Many great moments, excellent humor and a fate you would wish for your favorite sports team as well - unless you are one of those boring Yankees, Bulls or Bayern Muenchen fans...

Major League was six years too early in its prophecy for success for the Cleveland Indians. I'm old enough to remember when they had a good team back in the Fifties. When I was just a small kid, large Municipal Stadium known without affection as mistake on the lake used to have 70,000 plus crowds because the Indians had such players as Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, Joe Gordon, and Satchel Paige. But when that team went bad, the larger the stadium and they had the largest in baseball looked all the more empty.

Terry Pluto wrote a book on the history of the Indians failure called The Curse Of Colavito. In 1959 the Indians finished a respectable second to the White Sox in the pennant race that year with Casey Stengel's Yankees having an inexplicable bad season and a distant third. Rocky Colavito led the American League in home runs and he was the most popular fellow in Cleveland. He became one of a select group of Major Leaguers that year to hit four home-runs in one game. And he was traded to the Detroit Tigers for the batting champion, Harvey Kuenn. It was never the same for Cleveland.

Which takes us to the futile Indians of 1989 as futile in real life as they start on screen. The team comes into the possession of a new owner former showgirl Margaret Whitton. Her contract with the city specifies that if the team attendance dips below 700,000 for the season, she can move the team and she wants the warm sun of Miami instead of winters on the Cuyahoga River.

Building a winning team in baseball is a lot harder than what you see in Major League. But this collection of goofballs, misfits, and has beens actually get mad enough and start winning.

Major League has a nice collection of players playing ballplayers like veteran catcher Tom Berenger, narcissistic third baseman Corbin Bernsen, juvenile delinquent rookie pitcher Charlie Sheen known as Wild Thing for his lack of control, Wesley Snipes as center-fielder Willie Mays Hayes and Dennis Haysbert as a Santeria observing power hitter. It is the American League so Haysbert probably is the designated hitter. My favorite in the film is veteran manager James Gammon who pulls this collection together for a winning team.

Major League is a film for baseball and film fans it so nicely blends the interests. As for the Cleveland Indians when Municipal Stadium closed down and they got a new ballpark in Jacobs Field, they actually won a couple of pennants in 1995 and 1997. Of course the process to build the Indians wasn't half as entertaining as Major League is.

This is one of the cleverest predictable movies of all time, and for my taste the best baseball movie. A great cast, an underdog plot, and one memorable choice after another by the writers and director make this a valentine to the foot soldiers of our national pastime. (Remember, this was 15 years ago.)

The fabulous scoreboard, the hysterical radio play-by-play of Bob Uecker, even the motley occupants of Cleveland sports bars are irresistible hooks to reel us in, after we've been hooked by the motley team of colorful has-beens and never-were's. If this is a formula, it's the right one. I deeply love this movie, and regret not having seen it in its theatrical run. (I've seen it a dozen times since.) I'm sure the audience went wild during that climactic Yankees game! How about that Dorn making a bunch of clutch plays! Didn't you love Cerrano carrying his bat around the bases with him? Jake not dusting off, and pointing, twice...man, I wish I'd been there.

Then there's the little insert, early in the story, about Jake's fantasy of hitting the winning run out of the park. What happened instead when the chips were really down?

Okay, it isn't "poetry" -- it's more of a limerick, know what I mean? Just start with three words: "There once was...." and finish it yourself! I bet you'll finish with a big smile on your face!

This is one of the best baseball sports films ever made. Notg because it exactly depicts the tradition of baseball. Mainly because of a pitcher who can throw a ball at 96 mph at a guys head, a vodoo guy who doubts Jesus Christ's curve ball skills, and a guy named Willy Mayes Hayes who can run like haze but hit like s***. These are the original comedy things added to this great baseball film about the new owner of the Cleavland Indians who wants the team to finish dead last so she can sell the team. That is until the team (which includes Tom Berenger, Cornin Bernson, Charles Cyphers, Wesley Snipes and Charlie Sheen) changes all that. Incredibly funny, and it gets better with each viewing. My favorite moment, when Hays (played by a good newcomer named Wesley Snipes) finds out he made the Indians and just runs outside and goes (Owwwww, yes yes yes). A+