It’s opening day for the 2024 MLB baseball season, including here in Seattle, where the Mariners will take on the Boston Red Sox for the first four games of the campaign. And if you’re anything with me, the return of baseball comes with the need to revisit my favorite baseball movies.
Everyone has a personal favorite, whether it’s Bull Durham, Major League, or if you’re a true ball connoisseur, the incomparable Little Big League (just watch the actual baseball game scenes a little closer the next time it airs and you’ll know what I mean).
The debate over which baseball movie is the best of all time has raged for years, and it’s hard to find a consensus choice. But what about the best actor in a baseball movie? This is an interesting conversation.
First, I have a few parameters. Like the Baseball Hall of Fame, consistency must be part of an actor’s application here, so I’ve limited this list to people who have been in at least two baseball movies and must have appeared in uniform in at least one of those movies (if it weren’t for that, I’d have Geena Davis as a serious contender for a high spot on the list). Second, baseball skills are what we’re looking for the most here – the more convincing they looked as a big leaguer, the higher they go on the list.
With that out of the way, here it is: The 10 Greatest Baseball Movie Actors of All Time (plus one honorable mention).
• Honorable Mention: Michael Pappajohn
The go-to guy in the 90s when you needed a real jock to play some ball in your movie. He never said much, but his diving catch in Little Big League and his presence as the Yankees’ big bad hitter in For Love of the Game bring a lot to these movies.
• 10. James Earl Jones (The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, Field of Dreams, The Sandlot)
I have to start the real list with a legend. The reason he’s ranked number 10 is because he’s actually hurt from his one turn as a character in uniform. In The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, a 1970s romp about a slugging team of ex-Negro League players, he has a decent hitting stance but no stride in his swing, which takes the wind out of the sails of his Josh Gibson-inspired character. Darth Vadar and Lando Calrissian play baseball in this movie though, so it’s really worth watching if you’ve never seen it.
But you know why he really makes the list. That’s because James Earl Jones saying “BASEBALL, RAY” during his epic monologue in “Field of Dreams” is as iconic as anything ever said in a baseball movie.
did you watch it ok then now you are ready for opening day.
• 9. Neil Flynn (Major League Rookie of the Year)
The “janitor” from Scrubs (or Lindsay Lohan’s father in Mean Girls if you prefer) has a small role as a construction worker and Major League fan who has a love/hate relationship with a “Wild Thing” loyalist. A few years later, he played moderately convincing first base as Stan Okey of the Chicago Cubs in Rookie of the Year. That’s no small feat considering that a key scene in this movie involves pickoff tricks—what would a kid’s baseball movie be without a hidden ball trick or two?
• 8. Robert Wool (Bull Durham, Cobb, Arley$$)
Wuhl gets an edge over Flynn with an extra credit for his role as Arliss, giving him a serious sporting reputation. Honestly, he could still be ranked here just for his character in Bull Durham engaging in the most memorable mound visit in cinematic history.
• 7. Chelcie Ross (Major League, Trouble with the Curve)
I’ve never seen Trouble with the Curve (it has a bad reputation for its lack of baseball authenticity), but you tell me that crafty veteran righty Eddie Harris was in a second baseball movie, and that’s enough for #7. Sorry, Jobu. (Ross also had roles on Hoosiers and Rudy, so he’s a true sports movie legend.)
• 6. Art Lafleur (Field of Dreams, Mr. Baseball, The Sandlot)
The same guy played Chick Gandel and the Baby Ghost and was a Yankees coach in between. That’s a true baseball player in any book.
• 5. David Strathairn (Eight Men Out, A League of Their Own)
Strathairn is a great actor who, along with John Cusack’s Buck Weaver, carries Eight Men Out as Black Sox ace Eddie Cicotte (play that name on Immaculate Grid sometime, he always gets a low score). He’s also sneaky good as the less-than-benevolent type of AAGPBL commissioner in A League of Their Own.
• 4. Timothy Busfield (Field of Dreams, Little Big League)
Now we get to the serious players. After having to play the absolute worst non-believer in Field of Dreams, Buzzfield got his redemption as a sweetly swinging first baseman for the Minnesota Twins in the Little League, which is the most underrated baseball movie of all time (the action on the field is unsurpassed and that is not up for debate).
Not only did Buzfield learn to shoot left-handed for the role, he stood in the box against Randy Johnson for real to film the climactic scene. Alas, “Sweetheart” Lou Collins was robbed by Junior in the end, as the Mariners upset the Twins’ season to reach the playoffs on the big screen — a year before the M’s reached the postseason for the first time in real life.
• 3. Charlie Sheen (Eight Men Out, Major League)
This will be controversial. “Wild Thing” Ricky Vaughn might be the best character in baseball movie history, and Sheen was the legitimate heater thrower in the 80s. However, I think his game is OK as center fielder Happy Felsch in Eight Men Out. Not that it was necessarily his fault, as he should have been hampered by the fact that he had some terribly unconvincing dropped flies because he was playing someone who threw games on purpose. His swing in the background during the credits doesn’t look bad in the least.
• 2. Dennis Haysbert (Major League, Mr. Baseball)
And that’s why Sheen is third. Haysbert showed he has true Major League Baseball chops as Pedro Serrano, but he’s arguably even better in Mr. Baseball, which is a lost classic—well, sort of. As a movie, it’s pretty terrible. As an authentic representation of Japanese professional baseball and “gaijin” Americans playing overseas, it is amazing. While Cerrano couldn’t hit the curveball, Max “Hammer” Dubois is better with breaking pitches as he teaches Tom Selleck all about the show.
The main reason Haysbert has the edge over Sheen, however, comes from the movie they were co-stars on. Why? He actually hit a home run in the pivotal Major League game. Seriously – everyone who was there says he hit the ball in front of a huge crowd of extras at Milwaukee County Stadium. To me, an actor who hits a real homer beats an actor who throws in the 80s. Unless…
• 1. Kevin Costner (Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game)
… this pitcher also played a minor league lifer and was the main character in one of the greatest baseball movies ever made. Crash Davis. Ray Kinsella. Billy Chappell. Okay, maybe you don’t know the last one because For Love of the Game has the same problem as Mr. Baseball – bad movie, great baseball (helped even more by the presence of the legendary Vin Scully). Regardless, there’s no disputing that Costner has the best baseball movie resume out there.
He traded strikes and caught in Bull Durham, threw fastballs in the 80s and true breaking balls in For Love of the Game, and gave us the never-ending “Do you throw a catch or have a catch?” debate with the final scene of Field of Dreams. And there is no better lesson for young pitchers everywhere than this: “Strike outs are fascist. Throw some balls – it’s more democratic.” Now if that doesn’t scream ‘baseball’ I don’t know what does.
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