Pop Rocks: Just In Time For Spring Training, Here Are The Ten Worst Baseball Movies

For Love of the Game (1999)
Kevin Costner has starred in one great baseball movie (Bull Durham) one mediocre one (Field of Dreams) and this terrible effort, capping off a singularly disastrous decade for baseball films. Fun fact: Costner is a supporter of Arsenal Football Club, which is actually not fun at all.

The Scout (1994)
I don't mind stretching credibility in a baseball movie (Roy Hobbs in The Natural, for instance, or Rachel Griffiths' accent in The Rookie). What I do mind is insulting my intelligence. As a Cardinals fan, I especially liked how Ozzie Smith enters Game 1 of the World Series having hit five home runs in the playoffs (which would be one short of his max total for any entire season), and is batting 9th.

Oh, and Brendan Fraser's character pitches a perfect game on 81 consecutive strikes and hits two home runs.

Little Big League (1994)
I have a theory that the 1994 MLB strike was a reactions to all the shitty baseball movies released that decade (what, you thought it was about the salary cap?). And considering how much difficulty baseball owners and the Players Association have agreeing on anything, I find it hard to believe any of them would sign off on a 12-year old owner. Then again, the Twins have been owned by worse for quite a while.

Anyway, montage!

Fever Pitch (2005)
"The Curse of the Bambino is ovaaahh!" Nothing captured the insufferable gloating of thousands of chowder-slurping bandwagoneers like this otherwise monotonous romantic comedy. Worst of all, they let Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore onto the field at Busch Stadium after the Red Sox clinched the Series.

Anyway, it's eight years later and the Sox suck again. All's right with the world.

Trouble with the Curve (2012)
From my review: "The character of Gus is staring obsolescence in the face, his old-fashioned style inexorably going the way of the Dodo in the age of high-tech statistical analysis and "type A" talent men like the young gun in the Braves' organization trying to force Gus out. This character is played by Matthew Lillard. And as with every movie the actor appears in, the character's name might as well be "Matthew Lillard." I believe the term "Matthew Lillard" is also used in most reference works to denote any hyper-aggravating person whom you'd like to punch repeatedly in the kidneys."