Big Screen All-Stars

by JA, The Feed

With the summer movie season and the baseball season both winding down it seemed like a good time to put together an All-Star team of baseball players of the silver screen.

The rules stipulate only fictional players can be on the team, each movie can only be used to fill one position on the team and under no circumstances would the quality of the movie trump the quality of the fictional player when it came time to make the choices. There also a sad note for a Connecticut housekeeper as the players can only come from movies and not the boob tube. Happily it all works out in the end for the man we call Danza.

Catcher – Crash Davis, Bull Durham.

It’s not mentioned in the movie but I’ve always believed that Davis’ predilection for ponderous soliloquies about baseball and life always made it easy for teams to look past him to a more docile if less talented player. Most pitching coaches don’t like it when you tell their charges not to strike out batters, for one thing, and they really hate it when they tell hitters what’s coming. I’ve never been one to punish people for speaking their mind, however, and think that Davis could be have a Jack Cust-type impact if he’s finally given a regular dose of at-bats in the Show.

First Base – Jack Elliott, Mr. Baseball

What can I say; I’m a sucker for a moustache. He was washed-up in the major leagues but had a great season with the Chunichi Dragons. His selfless bunt to beat the Yomiuri Giants is the kind of leadership you like to see from a player who could have swung for the fences to break a long-standing record.

Second Base – Marla Hooch, A League of Their Own

Yeesh, the history of baseball movies has not been kind to second basemen. It was between the homely slugger of the Rockford Peaches and Wilmer Valderamma and while his sultry Latino good looks nearly swayed me I had to go with the better, if uglier, player for the spot. Tony Miceli would be all over this spot if it weren’t limited to movie characters.

Shortstop – Tanner Boyle, The Bad News Bears

If it needs saying it’s the original Bad News Bears, not the compromised second edition, which gives us our shortstop. He’s not that good at the plate nor does he do all that much in the field but Boyle gives our squad a racially insensitive edge that Ty Cobb himself would envy.

Third Base – Ed, Ed

He’s a chimp. He plays baseball. He’s a chimp that plays baseball. Easiest choice on this roster.

Leftfield – Charlie Snow, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

You might know him better as Carlos Nevada or Chief Takahoma, two of the aliases he used to try and beat the color line while playing for Long’s barnstorming teams. Snow was a fine outfielder who never got his shot on the biggest stage because of racism but the only problem he’ll have on this team is getting along with the vituperative Boyle.

Centerfield – Juan Primo, The Fan

Primo got shuffled to the margins when the Giants signed Bobby Rayburn but they would have been better off leaving the talented Primo in center and finding another spot for the selfish slugger. He’s a five-tool player, six if you count sideburns, and was on his way to a monster season when he got killed.

Rightfield – Roy Hobbs, The Natural

Was there really another option?

Utility – Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, The Sandlot

His nickname would probably be changed to B-Rod in the current baseball landscape but we like the Jet and we like the variety of skills he picked up while playing every position on the field as a youngster. Was still fast enough to swipe a key base late in his 30’s so he’ll pinch-run and then fill in wherever needed.

Backup catcher – Gus Sinski, For Love of the Game

Can’t hit worth a lick but Sinski calls a nice game and his defense and reliability would make for an able fill-in when Davis is hurting or tired.

Backup infield – O’Brien, Ryan and Goldberg, Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Not only can they turn double plays with aplomb but keystone combo O’Brien and Ryan are also stars on the vaudeville circuit who can sing and dance like nobody’s business. Goldberg gets the nod to further upset the shortstop.

Backup outfield – Darryl Palmer, The Slugger’s Wife

You would never, ever, ever tell it from watching him play baseball but Palmer was the guy who erased Roger Maris from the record book. More than a decade before Mark McGwire, Palmer was slamming homers while romancing Rebecca de Mornay in between terrible renditions of 80’s hits.

SP – Henry Rowengartner, Rookie of the Year

The first of two junior members of our rotation, Rowengartner helped bring smiles back to a pre-Bartman North Side after a well-placed fracture gave him the heater of Nolan Ryan. We’ll just have to make sure he steers clear of any misplaced baseballs.

SP – Remington Rigsby, Roogie’s Bump

Rigsby was known as Roogie and when he developed a mysterious bump on his arm it gave him Rowengartner-level pitching skills. The 1954 Brooklyn Dodgers were all the better for it. He can also kick a football over the Brooklyn Bridge.

SP – Mel Clark, Angels in the Outfield

The kind of veteran workhorse that every rotation needs, Clark throws 159 pitches in the ultimate game of the Angels comeback season to nose out the Chicago White Sox. That he did it without the aid of angels makes it all the more impressive.

SP – Henry Wiggen, Bang the Drum Slowly

Shackled with a catcher who is both dumb as an ox and sick as a dog, Wiggen doesn’t get frustrated and instead helps his teammate and the New York Mammoths succeed against all odds.

SP – Professor Vernon K. Simpson, It Happens Every Spring

A mild-mannered scientist until a baseball soars through his office window and gets contaminated with all manners of potions. The mixture makes the ball impervious to wood which leads Simpson to head to St. Louis, change his name to King Kelly and lead his club to the World Series. He represents the proud baseball history of cheating on our team and does it with a happy heart.

RP – Montgomery Brewster, Brewster’s Millions

It’s always nice to have a really rich guy on the team and Brewster fills that role. He also relies on deception more than raw ability which makes him a good change of pace from the fireballers of the rotation.

RP – Kirby Kyle, Radio Days

He was a kid with a great future. But one day, he went hunting. Chasing a rabbit, he stumbled, and his rifle went off. The bullet entered his leg. Two days later it was amputated. He had one leg, but he had something more important: he had heart.The following winter another accident caused Kirby Kyle an arm. Fortunately not his pitching arm. He had one leg and one arm, but more than that, he had heart.The next winter, going after a duck, his gun misfired. He was blind. But he had instinct as to where to throw the baseball. Instinct and heart. The following year, Kirby Kyle was run over by a truck and killed. The following season he won eighteen games in the big league in the sky.

RP – Jim Bowers, Little Big League

Bowers doesn’t have electric stuff but he’s good with a water balloon, hates Dave Magadan and pulls off one good-looking hidden-ball trick.

RP – Carmen Ronzoni, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training

Ronzoni was used as a starter in the big game that sent the Bears to Japan but I’ll use the abilities that shut down the Houston Toros to better effect out of the bullpen.

Closer – Rick Vaughn, Major League

He might prefer a starting role but after watching him destroy Clu Haywood in the top of the ninth I want him slamming the door on the opposition. His entrance, with “Wild Thing” blasting through the stadium, is also much more dramatic late in the game than it would be before the first inning.

Brooks Kieschnick – Steve Nebraska, The Scout

Hits a home run in every at-bat and regularly dials 100 on the radar gun.