Recently I visited the “Baseball as America” exhibit, which has finally made its way to Boston after six years on tour. I was pretty impressed by the sheer number of items on display, and pleased to see that the film section (which included a nice montage of clips) featured some of my favorite baseball movies. Kevin Costner’s two great baseball movies, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams got prime positions, as did Robert Redford’s The Natural. A League of Their Own was also well represented, with a costume-prop combo worn by star Geena Davis, and the montage included probably my favorite line in the whole film: “There’s no crying in baseball!” I also enjoyed hearing Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on first” routine and seeing the “You’ve Gotta Have Heart” song from Damn Yankees (without sound, sadly).
Movies I would’ve added: Eight Men Out (for the historical reference to the Black Sox scandal), The Rookie (based on a true story), and The Sandlot (to have a movie where kids were actually playing and enjoying the game). And there are plenty more suggestions where those came from …
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