Baseball comedy classic

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2003)

"Major League" is nothing original... it borrows heavily from the "Bad News Bears" school of screen writing. What holds the movie together is the easy charm and camaraderie of the cast, which features some tried and true character actors: Bob Uecker, basically playing himself; Margaret Whitfield, playing her patented "bitch" role, and James Gammon, playing the wise old coot who has seen it all. Rounding out the cast are Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen and Rene Russo, who at the time was new to features. The plot is as follows: The owner of the Cleveland Indians marries a Vegas showgirl and dies on his honeymoon, leaving her the team. Cleveland (which the song being played over the main titles laughingly refers to as "city of light, city of magic"- perhaps they are referring to when the Cuyahuga River caught on fire?) doesn't agree with her, so she wants to exploit a loophole in her contract with the city which stipulates if attendance falls below a certain level, she can take the franchise out of Cleveland. So she goes out and gets herself the sorriest looking group of ballplayers you've ever seen... A Cuban defector (because his religion is voodoo) who can only hit fastballs (Dennis Haysbert), the worlds laziest third baseman (Think Bernsen as a clean shaven Wade Boggs), a catcher with shot-out knees (Berenger channeling Johnny Bench or Cartlton Fisk), a near-sighted pitcher who throws 100 MPH at everything but the plate (Sheen), and the lead-off hitter who thinks he is Rickey Henderson (Wesley Snipes). The movie has a lot of laughs and it's a fun way to waste 90 minutes. Directed by David S. Ward of "The Sting" fame. Interestingly enough, this movie did give the nickname "Wild Thing" to one-time Philadelphia pitcher Mitch whatshisname who threw a bad pitch to Joe Carter in the 9th inning to lose the '93 World Series to Toronto.