The Greatest Game Has The Greatest Movies

There was only one night game a year. On the 4th of July, the whole sky would brighten up with fireworks, giving us just enough light for a game. We played our best then, because, I guess we all felt like the big leaguers under the lights of some great stadium.

Benny felt like that all the time. We all knew he was going to go on to bigger and better games. Because every time we stopped to watch the sky on those nights, like regular kids, he was there to call us back.

You see, for us, baseball was a game. But for Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, baseball was life.

Come on Meat. Come on Rook. Show us that million dollar arm. Cause I got a, oh I got a good idea about that five cent head of yours.

I used to crowd the plate so the strike zone almost disappeared. Pitchers hate that. That’s the way I played, 100% all the time. Baseball was life, and I was good at it…real good.

And then, one day, a high fast one and, POW! the lights went out.

You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag your way in and out of the dugout.

You know what that makes you? Larry?

Lollygagers!!

Engelbert?

What?

That is a bunt. B-U-N-T. The catcher is supposed to pick up the bunt and throw it to first base.

Don’t we need a catcher?

Not if you get it near the plate, we don’t.

Getting thrown out of baseball was like having part of me amputated. I’ve heard that old men wake up and scratch itchy legs that have been dust for over fifty years. That was me. I’d wake up at night with the smell of the ballpark in my nose…the cool of the grass on my feet…the thrill of the grass…man I did love this game. I’d have played for food money.

It was a game. The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a…a ball or a glove to your face? Yeah, I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town. The hotels…brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms.

It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep.

Shoot, I’d have played for nothing.

Is this Heaven?

No! It's Iowa.

Goodbye, Mr. Spalding!

Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon, Manny Mota!

You know what we get to do today, Brooks?

We get to play baseball!

Those Yankees are real turds.

You get out there, and the stands are full and everybody's cheerin'. It's like everybody in the world come to see you. And inside of that there's the players, they're yakkin' it up. The pitcher throws and you look for that pill... suddenly there's nothing else in the ballpark but you and it. Sometimes, when you feel right, there's a groove there, and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. When the bat meets that ball and you feel that ball just give, you know it's going to go a long way. d a m n, if you don't feel like you're going to live forever.

"Baseball is supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great"

Jake Taylor: I play for the Indians.
Chaire Holloway: Here in Cleveland? I didn't know they still had a team!
Jake Taylor: Yup, we've got uniforms and everything, it's really great!