One of the best baseball comedy of the 80's

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2009)

It's amazing to see how this movie also serves as a time tunnel to how baseball was, twenty years ago, before there was major league baseball in Florida. It's nostalgic to see the old White Sox and MAriners uniforms.
The premise of the film is centered around a stripper who marries a billionaire baseball team owner. The owner dies, and the stripper inherits the team.
But she doesn't care much for the city of Cleveland. She wants to move the team to Miami. She, she promotes manager Charlie Donovan to GM, and names Lou Brown, played to great effect by James Gammon, to manage the team. Problem is, Brown has never managed in the big leagues.
So she signs several players, none of whom she hopes to be of major league quality. Jake Taylor, a catcher with fading skills. Ricky Vaughn, a pitcher who's better at stealing cars then striking out batters. Pedro Cerrano, a power hitter who can't hit a fast ball. And by the way, Cerrano has an unusual religious affiliation.
Add Willie Mays Hayes, a hopeful who crashes the gates to order to make the team, Roger Dorn, who's more interested in his post baseball career then anything else, and Eddie Harris, an aging pitcher, and you have the perfect ingredients for a 100 loss team.
Instead, the team bonds together, in spite of their owner's plans for the team. The team comes out of nowhere to race for the AL pennant. All that stands in their way is a powerful New York Yankees team. A team that has gotten the best of Vaughn all season.
What happens in the most used formula films actually becomes a funny one because of the development of the characters involved. The film is witty, comical, and with the awesome performance by Bob Ueker, this has to be one of the best baseball comedies of all time. His performance as Harry Doyle has to be one of the best in film history. I really loved the following line "One hit, that's all we got one goddamn hit!" Former Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager and Brewers Pitcher Pete Vukovich each make small appearances in the movie, and this was one of the first major films for Rene Russo.
This is a really great movie, and it's more then a guilty pleasure. It's actually a good movie. Too bad the sequels tried to be a little too slapstick. But the first, remains the best! A must have for any film collection!